The King's Law
by Oreramar
Summary: The King's Law is absolute. Isshin and Ichigo may be in more danger now than they ever were in during the War.
1. The Hollow and the Oathbreaker

**The King's Law**

Chapter 1: The Hollow and the Oathbreaker

* * *

The sun rode high above the Seireitei, shining brightly in the cloudless blue sky. A group of pale breezes played through the streets and between the structures, providing a cooling contrast with the fierce heat of the summer sunlight. If one was only counting the weather, it was a perfect day. The Seireitei itself, however, was too silent for it to be normal. Weather like this demanded to be appreciated, practically required unoccupied shinigami to stand together in groups with friends, chatting and laughing and making plans with each other for dinner that evening, a day off exploring some old haunt in the mountains or in Rukongai, sake this weekend. Instead, the streets were crowded with quiet shinigami, wanderers with grim faces. Loud voices were quickly shushed. The ignorant or apathetic bowed to the pressure of those who knew and cared about what was happening that day, until all shinigami maintained that sad, almost respectful silence. Those unoccupied with business searched for occupation rather than the other way around. Many even cursed the cheerful sunlight, wishing for rain.

Not Ichigo. He didn't have much reason to be happy at the moment, but he supposed that some small part of him was, just to feel the warmth of the sun on his face. Had it been raining, even that tiny bit of pleasure would have been denied him in the end.

The Winter War was long over, and Aizen dead at last. Whether it was from the wounds Kurosaki Isshin had inflicted on the self-made god or from Ichigo's own final strike didn't matter; the King's throne was safe. Aizen would hurt nobody more. The Kurosakis returned gladly to life in Karakura, though Ichigo never gave up patrolling the town for hollows despite being under both physical recuperation and an imposed remedial program at school to make up for his missed classes. Days passed, and life returned much to normal. Weeks passed, and Rukia was recalled to Soul Society for a long-overdue promotion (fourth seat of squad thirteen now – Ukitake had wanted her as his vice captain, but thought that an ever-so-slightly more gradual increase of rank and duties would be better for everyone involved) and to help with the final cleanup after the war. Months passed, and Ichigo managed to pass into the next level of classes with halfway-decent grades despite everything, Rukia and Renji alike stayed in contact with him, and Soul Society was almost finished rebuilding itself, still lacking three captains in the Gotei 13 but once again with a fully-functioning Central 46.

And that's where it all went downhill.

Someone – Ichigo didn't know just who – had apparently thought it a good idea to review all of the King's Law, Soul Society's most ancient rulebook and its most strictly followed guide to crime and punishment, good deed and reward. Possibly they did it to help in the rebuilding effort; they did have to try Gin on it, after all. To the best of Ichigo's knowledge, the fox-faced traitor had been forcibly stripped of all his reiatsu, every power of his locked away too deeply to be unburied again, and was now cooling off in a high-security cell deep within a secret location in the Seireitei, to remain there for one thousand years…or until he died, as it was unlikely that a soul without any significant reiatsu could last so long.

In one part, Ichigo had to wonder how the traitor got so lucky. In another part, he realized both the answer (because the Law – the oldest Law – prescribed that particular punishment as an option for Captain-level traitors) and another question: how was _that_ fate 'luck?' Wasn't a quick death better?

Facing what he was at the moment, Ichigo wasn't so sure.

Something scraped softly across the back of Ichigo's white kosode, and a low, mirthless chuckle rose from behind him. He didn't bother turning his head, instead continuing to stare straight onward, watching white-robed and masked members of the kido corps mill around the oddly-shaped miniature kido cannon mounted just over twenty-five feet away. He couldn't tell exactly what they were doing, only that it involved a lot of strange gestures and a steady stream of murmuring he couldn't make out across the distance and the muffling scarves over their faces.

"Well, Ichigo, I'd've been a fool to think this never could've happened..."

The cannon's sharp tip was starting to steam. Thin loops of orange reiatsu rose slowly from the long, narrow barrel. The spellcasters continued to mumble, though they had stopped moving so much and had instead adopted a fixed gesture, each one identical to the other. Ichigo felt himself trembling again, unable to stop it this time.

"…but I honestly never expected it _would_."

The orange loops were growing larger and brighter, and with his own reiatsu dampened as it was, Ichigo could distinctly feel the energy growing before him – and behind him. It was hot, almost as stifling as the released Soukyoku had been, and Ichigo was far more aware of it than he had been of that flaming bird-blade. For one thing, his sword and his reiatsu weren't there to shield him from the waves of energy. For another, this time, it wasn't just pointed at a good friend, someone he could protect, someone he could risk his life for. It was pointed at him.

The back of his kosode shifted again, minutely. Ichigo's mouth was dry. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the cannon.

"I'm sorry about this, son," Isshin said quietly, his back not quite touching Ichigo's.

The orange-haired substitute shinigami managed to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth long enough to reply, shortly,

"Not your fault."

Then the cannons were ready to fire across the width of the Soukyoku hill, and for the man and the boy standing between them, there was no more time to say anything.

* * *

The house had been fairly quiet that night; Yuzu and Karin were at a friend's house with a small group of classmates for a sleepover. Ichigo and Isshin ate the dinner Yuzu had made and packed into the refrigerator for them, fought over who would do the dishes (Isshin ended up washing after Ichigo pinned him down and forced him to cry uncle), fought again because Isshin wanted his revenge, and eventually limped off to their respective bedrooms to fall asleep there.

Years of Isshin's wake-up calls had trained Ichigo to be a light sleeper, provided he wasn't badly injured or already exhausted. Midnight hollow attacks had only enhanced this trait. As a result, he was awake the very instant someone appeared in his room, approached his side with steps too light to be his father – too silent to even be Rukia or one of his sisters, and reached out for his shoulder. Ichigo waited until the outstretched fingers were centimeters from the fabric of his T-shirt, until he could sense the heat of them. Then, faster than thought, one leg whipped out from under the sheets and caught the stranger very solidly across his chest – the heavy grunt that resulted could only have come from a man – and Ichigo tumbled out of his bed, raced across the floor, and hit his light switch.

He didn't know what he would find; he certainly never expected what he saw. Leaping up from the floor was a black-masked man in close-fitting clothes. In an instant, Ichigo saw the katana sheathed across his back and recognized the appearance of a member of Soul Society's stealth force.

"What're you –" Ichigo started in shock, but he never got to finish his question. A sudden shock of pain raced through him, starting at his neck and ending with a white flash across his vision. The floor tilted toward him, darkening all the while, and Ichigo realized far too late that he hadn't even thought to guard his own back.

He woke up slowly, his head and left shoulder throbbing, with no sense of how much time might have passed. When he finally managed to blink his eyes open, nothing greeted him but grey stone surrounding him in a small cube-shaped room, with a single grey door with no handle set in the wall just before him. A black, reflective window was set high in that door, and a white light too pure and bright to be anything electric hovered at the center of the ceiling. Ichigo's head hurt because of the blow he had taken; his shoulder hurt because he was laying on it, and the stone floor was bare and hard.

Ichigo rolled onto his back and sat up, and that was when he noticed several other important changes to his situation. For one thing, he was no longer wearing his sleep pants and T-shirt – he didn't even seem to be wearing his _body_ any more, actually. His shinigami uniform was nowhere in sight, however, nor was Zangetsu. Someone had dressed him in white, narrow pants and a kosode tied shut with a simple belt, all of it of a rough, unknown fabric. His feet were bare, and his hands were bound close together at the wrists by a set of metal cuffs.

As Ichigo stared down at his new attire in shocked confusion, he realized just what seemed so familiar about it. An image flashed through his mind, one of Rukia standing on that bridge, of her hovering under the crossbeam of the execution stand, in bare feet and white robe and red collar…

His right hand flew up to his neck, dragging the left with it, and he felt the smooth, bulky strap there, recognizing the draining sensation of a reiatsu-consuming and containing device as soon as he touched it.

"Wh-what's going on here?"

His voice sounded weak. Confused, angry, and at least a little afraid, Ichigo scrambled to his feet, using the wall behind him as support.

"Oi!" he bellowed at the door. "OI! Someone there? What's going on? Where am I? Let me out of here!"

The door didn't open; wherever it led lay silent. Ichigo crossed the little room in two steps and kicked at the grey metal desperately.

"_Oi!_" he shouted one last time, pressing his forehead to the cool metal. Again, there was no answer. Ichigo turned around and regarded the room, his breath hissing through his clenched teeth.

He had never been claustrophobic, but for once he thought he might be able to relate. This place was too small, too closed. The light was too bright, but without it, he had little doubt that the room would instead be too dark; there were no windows or torches or other sources of illumination. He could cross from any wall in the room to its opposite in just three steps – two if they were long – and if he jumped hard enough he could just about hit his head on the ceiling, even without any shinigami powers to help.

If not for the light above him and the door behind him, he could easily have been in a tomb.

Ichigo whirled around and pounded both fists against the unyielding metal. The thin chain between them clattered against the door in an odd beat.

"_Let me go!_"

"Kurosaki Ichigo."

He stopped and looked up at the dark square in the door, a window he was sure, but could see nothing but his own darkened reflection. The owner of the deep, emotionless voice could not be seen.

"Step away from the door."

Ichigo paused, his rebellious nature only briefly at odds with the possibility of getting out of the room and maybe even escaping entirely from wherever he was. He quickly stepped back once, twice, standing slightly closer to the far wall than not, and waited for the door to swing open, planning to attack the moment the gap was wide enough for him to see his target and charge through.

Instead, the entire door vanished entirely.

The orange-haired young man blinked as he found himself suddenly faced by five white-robed guards, four of them carrying long fork-topped staffs. The fifth stood in their midst, gazing at him evenly over the top of his long white cloth mask.

"You will come."

From his voice, he was the one who spoke earlier.

"You sure about that?" Ichigo muttered, full of teenage rebellion and the slight fear of a cornered animal and the calm of a warrior as he glanced over the men, thinking of how and where and how fast to hit them to make good his escape. Without any powers and with his hands tied, it wouldn't be easy. With luck, instinct, and planning, maybe it could still be done.

"We have orders to take you before the Council of 46 now, without further delay. We were also instructed to do whatever we must to follow those orders, be it carry you unconscious to the Chamber, drag you in as a dumb animal, or simply guide you as a man. You will come to the judging, and how is your only choice." the man clarified calmly.

"I haven't done anything," Ichigo countered, thinking furiously back to make sure this was true. It was. Short of invading Seireitei to rescue Rukia from her execution – which he had surely been forgiven for – and defying Yamamoto to rescue Inoue from Hueco Mundo – which had never been mentioned, and the order really shouldn't have any bearing on him anyhow – he'd done absolutely nothing against their laws as far as he knew.

"The Council does not appreciate being made to wait."

Ichigo took a deep breath and one calm, centered step forward. Then he lowered his head and charged. One staff-holding man was knocked back into the wall of the narrow hallway outside the room by the force of the attack; Ichigo spun a powerful side kick into another an instant later. A blur of white and black caught the corner of his eye. He ducked, and the staff whistled over his head; he straightened, and faster than he could even see it, the fourth staff lashed forward, catching his neck between its pronged end and the wall. Ichigo choked against the pressure, sparks flying across his vision from the impact of his head against stone. Both of his hands came up to grip the shaft of the strange weapon, but they slipped across its polished head, unable to gain purchase enough to push it away.

The speaker of the group, who had ducked aside the moment Ichigo rushed them, stepped up again, the others picking themselves up with far less difficulty than the shinigami might have liked.

"That…was foolish."

* * *

The Chamber where the Council of 46 sat was magnificently intimidating – a quality heightened only by the fact that most people only saw the inside of it when they were in deep trouble and knew it. Much taller than it was wide and perfectly symmetrical in length and depth, the room was designed with the sole intention of cowing the accused into submission, surrounding him with unseen eyes and voices on all sides and high above his head, making the criminal standing in the center of the floor feel as small as a pebble at the bottom of the ocean, insignificant as an ant in a land of giants. The dark reds, browns and blacks of the walls and paneling created a closed-in effect, one that warned of danger and heightened fear. It was as useful an interrogation room as a hall of judgment.

The genius of the architecture was lost on Kurosaki Ichigo, however. He was, at first, too busy seething at the humiliation of his forced march through twisting corridors, prodded at the back by a pronged staff if he ever dropped a step behind his two main escorts, tugged back by the two cords that ran from reiatsu collar to stafftops whenever he managed to tread slightly ahead. They hadn't met anyone else in those drab halls, but Ichigo hated even the thought of being so controlled by others.

He wished he'd managed to break a bone in that first attack. It had been far weaker than he expected without his spiritual power to back up the strikes; almost another humiliation in its own right. If there was something he hated as much as another person's control over him, it was his own powerlessness.

He was so busy brooding, in fact, that not only did he miss the details of the Chamber when he was marched in, but he also initially missed the presence of another figure in white, standing on the floor beside him. The other did not miss him, however.

"_Ichigo_?"

The sound of his name, even in a weak whisper, caught his ears and he turned his head toward it automatically, leaning forward to peer around one of his guards.

There, wearing much the same thing Ichigo was, his black hair as spiky and his chin as stubbled as Ichigo had last seen on that night at home, stood Kurosaki Isshin. His eyes were wide with shock and another emotion Ichigo couldn't immediately name and didn't want to – it honestly scared him a little.

"Dad? Dad, what's going o—"

Isshin shushed Ichigo at the same instant as the spokesperson of the guards stepped forward and bowed deeply to the room in general.

"Kurosaki Ichigo. We apologize for our tardiness – as the Council can surely see, there was a complication."

"It was expected," replied a smooth, feminine voice from behind one of the painted screens somewhere on Ichigo's right. He looked briefly around, but couldn't begin to guess which of the seated people spoke; he couldn't even see enough of each person to guess at genders.

"Guards, dismissed," said a man's voice from somewhere higher, closer to the center of the circling levels of seats. The guards bowed as one, unclipped the cords from Ichigo, and vanished away with a quiet swish of cloth.

Now, alone on the floor except for Isshin, both of them dressed in shining white which could never blend in with the dark red, towering room, blocked from his powers and still without his full range of movement available, the technique of the Chamber's appearance began to work on Ichigo. His heart hammered harder in his chest as he took in his location – surrounded, the only escape the door through which he had entered – and froze with his eyes on Isshin's.

He was afraid. Kurosaki Isshin, Ichigo's crazy, off-the-wall father, was _afraid_.

Ichigo opened his mouth. Isshin shook his head. The Council either hadn't noticed the brief exchange or didn't care, because they began to speak in turns almost immediately afterward.

"Kurosaki Isshin…"

"Kurosaki Ichigo…"

"Do you know why you are here?"

This already from three different directions. Ichigo realized then that trying to keep track of the speaker was only going to result in a sore neck from constant swiveling and scanning; perhaps it was better to gaze directly ahead, as Isshin had begun to do, and let the ever-changing voices wash over him from every side.

They had fallen silent; apparently it had not been a rhetorical question. Ichigo shook his head in reply; he had no clue. Whatever it was, it was apparently something bad enough to warrant what felt like some sort of trial, though certainly not one anything like the modern kinds he had seen glimpses of now and again on the television.

"I think I have an idea for myself," Isshin said aloud, "but if you want to explain, go ahead."

"Kurosaki Isshin, former member of the King's Guard. Is that right?"

"That's right," Isshin replied.

"Missing in the human world over twenty years ago, gone without a trace, presumed dead for about as long."

"Recently re-emerged, alive and well, having married a human woman and fathered three half-blooded children."

"Mind if we leave the kids out of this?" Isshin asked, a tiny hint of affected cheer struggling into his tone. "It's not like they asked to be born or anything."

The Council murmured, but passed the question by a moment later without further comment.

"Do you recall the oaths you took as a Guardsman?"

"Do you recall the King's Law, which you swore to uphold?"

"Do you recall the list of a Guardsman's greatest possible crimes?"

"Do you still doubt why you're here?"

"Ah. So it is that. No, in that case, I know why," Isshin replied, grave again. "Go ahead, then."

"Desertion of a shinigami up to the rank of vice captain is punishable by up to fifty years in prison and possible stripping of rank," said one of the Council members, her old voice rising and falling in the sing-song litany of one reciting a memorized passage. "Desertion of a captain or vice-captain is punishable by complete stripping of rank, possible stripping of powers, and possible imprisonment or civilized exile up to a century."

"Desertion of a captain-commander or member of the King's Guard," continued another voice, older and stronger than the last, "is punishable only by death, either by stripping the soul of all power and exiling it to wilderness forever, or by immediate execution."

It took Ichigo's brain a moment to catch up with the meaning of this last statement.

"Wait, what?" he burst out suddenly. There was a sound around him like the rising wind as Council members shifted in their seats and spoke softly with one another, their overall tone something like surprise. "You're going to…are you _joking?_ Ichimaru Gin tries to help overthrow all of Soul Society, and you pack him away in a cell somewhere, but Dad gets married, and you're talking _death_?"

"Ichigo…" Isshin tried, to no avail.

"What kind of whacked-out system is this?"

"Impudent," one voice said, too clearly for the mutter in the tone to be meant as concealment.

"Just an ignorant child."

"No wonder nobody thought it was fishy when the last bunch of you appeared to be making all those stupid orders about Rukia, if this is the sort of stuff you do normally!"

"How dare you bring up—"

"Insufferable cheek!"

"Ichigo!"

"No, Dad, they can't get away with this sort of—"

"Former Guardsman, _can you not control your offspring_?"

"ICHIGO!"

Instinct took over. He froze instantly, and the half-outraged words of the Council gradually died down as well. Isshin hadn't used that tone in his name in years and years. It was the sort of tone he used just before a young Ichigo ran out onto the street, heedless of an approaching car, the sort where he had walked into the kitchen to find Ichigo perched precariously on the edge of the counter, so intent on the cookie jar he was tugging forward that he missed the fact that it was starting to tip the knife rack over. Rash and active as he had always been, Ichigo had learned the intuitive meaning of that tone very early, the same way young animals can interpret the varied warning cries of their parents. _Stop what you're doing, follow my instructions exactly and immediately; you're in danger_. That's what it meant, more or less, and in spite of the fact that he was no longer a child, he couldn't help the knee-jerk reaction of immediate obedience.

That was enough. Isshin strode forward, grabbed Ichigo's shoulder lightly in his two hands, and nodded politely to the council.

"A moment?"

Without waiting for them to grant it, Isshin pulled Ichigo slightly off to one side and leaned close to his ear, whispering to keep their conversation as private as possible given the circumstances.

"Ichigo, you have to stop that."

"Why?" Ichigo didn't bother to whisper. The old childhood reaction to hearing his name shouted that way had already worn off, leaving Ichigo an indignant teenager once again.

"Listen to me. For your sisters' sake if nothing else. Ichigo, I can't do anything here. I'm gone. Just stay quiet and I'll get you out – your birth was more my fault than yours, and I knew what I was risking, so it's got nothing to do with you."

"What are you babbling about?" Ichigo asked, lowering his tone slightly. Cold disbelief crept up on him. "You aren't seriously…"

Isshin squeezed his shoulder lightly, both a reassurance and a warning.

"Just don't give them any more reason to dislike you. Please, Ichigo."

Before he could reply, Isshin was back at the center of the room, bowing to the Council with as much pride as a man in his position could muster.

"Sorry about that. You know how hot-headed teenagers can be."

Ichigo clenched his teeth and his fists. He did not need his old man making excuses for him, not when these lunatics…

"Very well," said the voice of a serene old man. "I think we may overlook it this once."

"But another break in proper decorum…"

They left the threatened punishment unsaid; the blank in the air could be filled with anything, and that made it all the weightier. Isshin threw Ichigo a serious look over his shoulder.

"You were discussing…" he said, turning back to the council with the air of a tired man just wanting a tedious meeting to be done with.

"The King's Law."

"Desertion."

"Your fate."

"Could I ask one thing?"

The sound of wind passed around the room as the council murmured and whispered in quick debate.

"Ask," one clear voice said at last.

"You know of my children; you just mentioned them a bit ago. My decision was not their fault – don't let them be punished for my action. Also, their mother is dead, and with this…well, if possible, I'd like to be able to set something up to take care of them for a few years – just until they can handle it themselves. Preferably something through people I can trust, not just the human government or another big group."

The Council whispered again, longer this time. At long last, the rounds of speech began again, each one trading off smoothly with the next.

"We will not make them suffer for you."

"You will have a grace period in Soul Society, as is customary. You may oversee any arrangements then through shinigami liaisons."

"We will order that any shinigami assigned to Karakura town keep especial watch over your daughters."

Ichigo was so surprised by this sudden act of almost-kindness – the shinigami probably didn't need to make any sort of special arrangement like that; his dad hadn't even asked for it – that he missed the significance of a particular word in the last sentence.

"Watch over my daughters?" Isshin said suddenly, a little sternly. "I appreciate your offer of protection, but Ichigo can take care of any hollows himself. They won't need a guard; he'll be there for them."

The silence in the room made more sense than any words.

"Wait," Isshin said, still stern-serious. "No, you just said you wouldn't make them suffer – _any _of them."

"They will not suffer on your behalf, for your crime," said an elderly man, just as stern. "And your daughters have done nothing against us themselves. Your son is another matter."

"He was never part of you," Isshin insisted. "He never swore any oaths to break! The King's Law can't bind him."

"You are wrong."

"One part can."

"It does."

Ichigo forced his feet to move, to carry him to the center of the floor again. Once he stood beside his father, he glared up into the shadowed heights of the room.

"What are you talking about?"

There was silence, then, like the intonation of a spell, the Council murmured almost as one:

"_Hollow_."

"Hollows are the shinigami's mortal enemy," said the woman with the sing-song reciting voice. "No hollow may be suffered to live, except briefly as a means of study or training."

"No matter the circumstance, any hollow in the presence of a shinigami must be purified immediately."

"The King's Law is absolute on the matter of hollows."

"We must follow it."

"A Vaizard is as much hollow as shinigami."

"No matter what…"

"A hollowed soul must be cleansed and laid to rest, either by a shinigami's sword or by a shinigami's reiatsu."

"Even if the hollowed soul shares a body with an entire soul."

"The other Vaizard will share your fate as they are found. There can be no exceptions, else the Law itself stands to fail."

The entire room fell silent. Ichigo's scowl deepened.

"So, what? That's it? Dad gets married, and he has to die. I have a hollow in my soul, and I have to die. Never mind any sort of _good _that came of anything – the _King's Law_ says it, so you follow? We _saved your precious King_! We stopped Aizen before the King's Realm and killed him for you, and this is the thanks we get?"

"SILENCE!"

At least five voices shouted it at once.

"We have given you our thanks!"

"We have already bent much of the law simply by allowing you to hear judgment."

"The Law tells us to kill a hollow immediately…"

"…on sight…"

"…without quarter…"

"…and leave its spiritual form to rot, however long it might take."

"We show you as much respect as we can find it in the Law to allow by giving you a shinigami's fate, a shinigami's death –"

"Rather than slaughtering you like a beast!"

"You complain of our thanks?" continued another voice, more wearily than most before him. "Boy, understand the means the giver must live with before you scorn his admittedly small gift. It may be the last coins or crumbs he can part with while avoiding starvation himself."

"The King speaks through his Law."

"We _must_ obey."

"We are all _sworn_ to obey."

"And that is all we can do."

"Do you understand?"

Ichigo shook his head furiously. No, he did not understand, and he never would. In his eyes, sometimes laws were wrong. He stood by what he told Byakuya: he would fight the law if it threatened a friend – Rukia – or, in this case, a family member – Isshin. As for himself…it simply didn't seem fair. In fact, it was feeling more and more like a dream to him, a nightmare. He wanted to wake up, but at the same time, he knew with utter certainty that what was happening to him was real. There could be no waking up from this.

"Kurosaki Isshin, Kurosaki Ichigo…"

"You were called here to hear your crimes-"

Ichigo laughed shortly, not bothering to mask the mocking sound. He was ignored.

"—and the punishment they called for."

"We have discussed your cases long before you entered."

"Our decision is final and, once stated, may not be changed except in the small details."

"Kurosaki Isshin, for the crime of desertion of the King's Guard…"

"Kurosaki Ichigo, for the purification of your hollowed soul…"

"You will be executed together, twenty-one days from now, on the Soukyoku hill."

"Since that blade was broken this year past and cannot now be used…"

"The means shall be powerful kido, chosen by the shinigami and kido corps specifically for quick, painless death."

They were silent for a moment, allowing it to sink in. It still didn't feel real to Ichigo.

"The guards will escort you now to new holding cells, where you will remain for the first fourteen days of the grace period."

"We apologize for the shortening of said period, but we cannot, in good conscience with the Law, allow certain parties time to possibly engineer your escape."

"For that reason, your allies in the human world have been cut off from passing into the Soul Society for the time being…"

"And your closest allies in the Soul Society will be put under probationary house arrest for the duration. You may not see them; they may not visit you."

"If you so wish, you may write farewell letters to be delivered after your deaths."

"That is all."

"You may go now."

Without any visible or auditory command, the door behind Ichigo opened and ten of the identically-clothed guards entered. Five of them arrayed themselves around Isshin, who turned around silently and walked out between them as heavily as though the entire world had just been dropped onto his back. The other five guards moved to surround Ichigo. He looked up and met the eyes of one, recognizing their leader and spokesman on a hunch. The man raised his eyebrows in question. Ichigo glanced around at the tall staffs, the kido-enchanted cords wrapped around them, and shook his head mutely.

Though he was still walking through a nightmare, Ichigo left the Chamber with control over his own footsteps, at least.

* * *

Chad knew something was off when he woke up that morning. He felt oddly drained and tired, despite his deep sleep the previous night, and there was a sore spot on his left forearm which showed no signs of a bruise, wound, or bug bite, though it felt as though it might have been sporting all three at once.

It was, at first, easy enough to dismiss: perhaps he had dreamed restlessly the night before, but forgotten the dreams by the time he awoke. That had happened before. Perhaps the ache just under his skin's surface was brought on by hitting his arm against something rather harder than he thought or could recall, and the bruise simply hadn't shown yet…that, he was pretty sure, had happened before as well.

But something else was wrong. Something big.

Chad didn't know reiatsu the way most of his friends did. He could feel things sometimes, but he often couldn't put a name to them. His sense of reiatsu usually manifested as slight annoyance, like the nagging feeling of having forgotten something. Chad knew better than to pressure his memory – or in this case, this sense of his – to give up its secrets. Instead of worrying over what he felt – or didn't feel, as it seemed more like an absence than a presence – he went on with his morning as normally as possible, trusting that the cause of this curious sensation would make itself known soon enough.

It did, in the form of his old, second-hand land line ringing. He picked up but wasn't even given the chance to say hello.

"Sado-kun – oh, good, you're awake, I was so worried since it's a Saturday morning and I don't know if you sleep in or not, and I've only just finished my rice-and-red-bean-cake breakfast myself…"

"Inoue," Chad greeted. Even if he didn't recognize her voice, the chatter would have been unmistakable. "Is something wrong?"

People rarely called Chad, after all. He was as quiet on the telephone as he was in person. He supposed the silence might be slightly unnerving when the other person couldn't even see him.

"I don't know, I'm probably being silly again, but…do you know where Kurosaki-kun is?"

Suddenly, the absence that Chad felt made too much sense. He wondered how he could have missed the vanishing of his best and closest friend, because now that he thought about it, that's what it was: a vanishing. It was not just the fading of distance. There was a black hole there, similar to the one Chad felt when Ichigo went to train with the vaizard.

He had a gut feeling that this had nothing to do with them. Weren't they supposed to be in the middle of moving again anyhow?

"Sado-kun? Are you still there?"

Chad made a quick decision. It might be nothing important, but then again, it might not. There was one person he could think of who would definitely know.

"I'll meet you at Urahara's. Bring Ishida."

Without waiting for an answer, he hung up. Inoue was probably used to his way of ending a conversation by now anyhow. Pausing at the door only long enough to stuff his feet into shoes large enough for children to use them as toy boats, Chad left his small apartment and loped to the Urahara shop.

Maybe it was nothing.

Something in his gut told him not to get his hopes up.

He arrived at Urahara's shop just before Ishida, and they waited in the dirt yard for Inoue. When she also finally arrived, panting after her run, the three of them turned and entered the dim shop together.

"Why, hello, everyone!" Urahara proclaimed cheerfully from his cross-legged position at the front of the store. He flapped his fan up and down in a short wave. "What brings you to my humble shop this fine day?"

"Um…Urahara-san," Inoue began, "have you seen Kurosaki-kun lately? Only it felt like he'd gone away last night, like to Soul Society, and now none of us can feel him at all. Did he use your gate?"

The smile on Urahara's face slid away like wet paint under driving rain. The fan flicked shut, then open again across the lower half of his face.

"So you've noticed, then?"

"Noticed what?" Ishida demanded.

"May I see your left arms? One of you or all, it doesn't matter."

They eyed Urahara in slight confusion. It was Chad who stepped forward at last, thrusting his left arm out for inspection. He rotated it automatically so the underside of his forearm faced the sandy-haired former shinigami; he had a feeling that the vague, minor sore spot he had noticed was what the man was after. Sure enough, Urahara went straight for that location, prodding it lightly with the tip of his fan. He sighed heavily.

"They thought of everything, didn't they?"

"What? What is it?" Ishida demanded again. He really was like Ichigo sometimes, Chad reflected oddly.

"Last night, several shinigami came to visit me. Actually, 'visit' isn't quite right; they rather broke in, entered my storage areas and stole – confiscated, they called it when I confronted them – the equipment I use to make temporary senkaimon into Soul Society. I didn't manage to get back what they took, but I did get some information. By the time I got enough of the story out of them, though, it was too late to stop anything. You three—"

Urahara swept his closed fan in a quick semi-circle, indicating the three of them at once.

"—were also visited last night, though I suppose your shinigami managed to be somewhat stealthier. They seem to have taken reiatsu samples, and I'm afraid that can only mean one thing: you're being locked out of the Soul Society."

"What?" Ishida half-shouted.

"Why?" Inoue cried.

"Ichigo," Chad stated. "It has something to do with Ichigo." What the connection was, he couldn't begin to guess, only that the connection was there. Why else would Urahara have explained all of this when all they wanted to know was where their friend had gone?

"Yes," Urahara said, the fan up again. "Kurosaki-san…and his father, Isshin. It seems that while I was dealing with my thieves and you were unaware, sleeping, the Kurosaki household also received a few shinigami guests…"

"They were kidnapped?" Inoue squealed. She began to wave her arms around frantically. "Oh my goodness, we have to do something before they're turned into frogs, or experimented on, or sent into outer space on a robot alien spaceship, or…or…"

"Inoue, calm down," Ishida said, reaching for her shoulder but never really touching it. "Think of what you're saying!"

"I am," she insisted, "it's so awful!"

"But unlikely." Ishida paused. "Most of it, anyway…"

"If it's the 'experimented' part you're worried about, don't be," Urahara said grimly. "Kurotsuchi won't be getting his hands on them – aside from the whole 'going to be executed' thing, death row prisoners are kept pretty safe from any outside harm."

There were several beats of silence. Chad could feel his heartbeat and his pulse keenly in every part of his body, though it felt oddly detached, like the body – and the heart – wasn't really his anymore.

"Executed?" Ishida croaked.

Urahara bowed his head. None of them could see his eyes.

"I demanded the shinigami tell me exactly what was happening. They sent notice just half an hour ago.

"In twenty-one days, Isshin and Ichigo will be killed."

* * *

The new holding cells were spacious…comparatively speaking, at least. They were composed mostly of a dark, smooth wood, only the back wall being made of stone, and the tall bars that made up the entire front wall and the divisions between the cells themselves made the entire area appear deceptively open. The fact that the cuffs had been removed – dissolved by some kido of a type Ichigo had never seen before – the moment the door had been shut behind him also helped.

Once he got over the temporary pleasure of his usual range of motion being returned, however, Ichigo found that there was very little to like about his situation. The dreamlike sensation was slowly fading, taking with it the vague, childish hope that he would wake up safe at home and find it was all just a pointless nightmare. Reality was setting in, and Ichigo found himself missing the numbness that had carried him from the sentencing through countless underground tunnels to the second division cells.

He was also rather missing the silence that had come with it. Tucking himself just a little further into the corner he had claimed half an hour ago, he pressed his hands against his ears and grimaced slightly.

One cell over, perhaps fifteen feet away from him - not nearly far away enough - Isshin stood leaning against the bars at the front of his own space, giving loud instruction to the confused-looking shinigami facing him. The poor fourth squad underling was scribbling frantically in a hand-held notepad, having long since given up any hope of committing all of Isshin's words to memory.

"…and remember to check _first_ with the Arisawas, _then_ ask my colleagues in the medical business, and _only_ approach Urahara Kisuke if nobody else takes them in. But why wouldn't they? Nobody could resist my little angels!"

The shinigami nodded frantically, probably trying to be polite, and flexed his writing hand behind his notebook. He could afford to take the break; Isshin had already given this particular instruction - three times now, by Ichigo's count.

"Make sure they know that their bedtime is at nine o'clock, nine-thirty at the latest on weekends and during school holidays! Karin _should_ bathe every night she has soccer practice, though sometimes she's too tired to remember, so they'll have to keep it in mind for her. Oh! And to keep their underpants straight, they always got different colors. Yuzu likes yellows, pinks, and polka-dot patterns. Karin gets blue and red, mostly, and Ichigo always got—"

"SHUT UP!" Ichigo roared, feeling his face flame red. "IDIOT! YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT STUFF!"

He caught a glimpse of the shinigami's face – his eyes were screaming pity for Ichigo even underneath the film of terror that had settled over them a scant five minutes into the instruction-giving – before burying his own back in the space between his up-drawn knees.

"I'm seeing to your sisters' future!" Isshin shouted back. "It's my responsibility as a father to make sure these sorts of things are dealt with ahead of time so that my little darlings don't have to worry about them themselves! And if _you_ hadn't gotten into trouble as well, you wouldn't be here listening to this, would you?"

If _he_ hadn't gotten into trouble as well, Ichigo thought bitterly, embarrassing details and childhood stories about him would have ended up floating around the Seireitei, thanks to his idiot father. If there was one good thing – one single spot of light – in this whole problem, it was that Ichigo was at least present to shout Isshin down whenever he started saying too much about something. He wished they were in the same cell at least, though; the urge to kick his father to the floor had been building steadily throughout the last half hour.

"Right!" Isshin half-shouted, clapping his hands and turning his attention back to the shinigami outside his cell. "Quiz time: for finances, I need…?"

The dark-haired young man flipped frantically through pages of notes.

"…um, transfer paperwork from bank, contact Urahara Kisuke but make sure the name it's put under is Shihoin Yoruichi."

"Clinic?"

"Something about a last will…?"

"Oh, yeah, I'll need that as well, make a few updates – I've not changed it in years."

The shinigami made a note.

"Daughters?"

"Um…Arisawas first, medical second, Urahara last, and…sir, I have nineteen pages of caretaking notes. Do I have to read out all of them?"

Isshin sighed dramatically.

"No, I suppose not, then…but you realize I'm trusting you! If one thing is wrong or out of place…!"

"I'm sure I have everything," the shinigami squeaked, flipping through the aforementioned pages and scanning them quickly, as though any errors were bound to be outlined in red and begging for his attention.

"All right, fine…and my son?"

The shinigami looked blankly at Isshin before raising a hand to point at Ichigo, still huddled in his corner as though wishing that the walls or ground could open up and swallow him.

"…over there, sir."

Isshin managed to look comically confused.

"That's right, I forgot. You're not usually this quiet, my delinquent hollow son."

Ichigo didn't bother raising his head. His answer was somewhat muffled, though no less biting.

"Shut. Up."

"You should show more love for your father in his last days of life," Isshin chided Ichigo cheerfully.

"Um, sir? A-am I done now? Only I'm supposed to be cleaning…"

"They're my last days, too, goat-chin!"

"True," Isshin acknowledged, just before twisting his face into one of exaggerated horror and sorrow. "THAT MEANS YOU'LL NEVER GIVE ME ANY GRANDBABIES!"

Ichigo gripped his head hard and bit back a scream.

"I might've been able to bear it if I knew you would survive and find a nice girl and fulfill all my fatherly dreams even though I was beyond the grave, but now!" Isshin wailed loudly, "Oh, Masaki! Our son has failed us!"

"S-sir? Are you…can I…?"

"Perhaps if I begged and pleaded, they'd allow you to visit Rukia-chan a few times…"

"What the hell?" Ichigo jumped up, turning red and nearly screeching with indignant rage. "What's the midget got to do with any of this?"

"Did I have it wrong?"

"Have what wrong? There's nothing to _get_ wrong! Stop suggesting things like that; it's not right!"

"It's a natural part of life, my son! One which you have not yet realized…unless you've been a lot sneakier than I ever—"

"SHUT UP!" Ichigo shouted furiously, crossing his cell at speed and only stopping when the bars separating him from Isshin wouldn't allow him to go any further. These he struck as hard as he possibly could, but he succeeded only in sending shots of pain through his fists, not in demolishing the hardwood the way he could have with all of his reiatsu available. "YOU PERVERTED OLD GOAT, SHUT UP!"

The shinigami squeaked, his brown eyes wide and his entire frame just shy of shaking. He clutched the notebook and pen against his chest as though they were protective charms and stepped back quickly. Whether it was the sound or the motion, he finally caught Isshin's attention, even over Ichigo's continued raging.

"Ah, go on, get out of here," Isshin shouted, waving one hand at the poor fourth-squad shinigami. The fellow was out of the detention chamber almost before Isshin had finished speaking. "Oh, and Ichigo? By calling me that, you're making references about _my _parents that also slight _you_ in the end, being my son and all…"

Ichigo roared in frustration, turning away from the bars to pace his cell instead, still seething.

"I give up!" he shouted, half to himself it seemed. "We're in this mess, but you can't stop being an idiot for longer than three seconds! How the hell can you be so _cheerful_?"

"Cheerful?" Isshin's grin gained a wry twist. He approached the bars separating them and leaned against them in a serious manner. "Who said anything about my being cheerful?"

Ichigo stopped and stared at him. Isshin's grin returned to its full manic force within a second.

"I'm positively giddy—GAH!"

Isshin fell back to the floor, clutching his nose. Ichigo stuck his fist between the bars and shook it at his father.

"There's no _reason_ to be _giddy_! Our days are literally numbered!"

"You have a strange philosophy of life, my son – I find that's _precisely_ the right reason to be joyful!"

"What? And _you're_ calling _me_ strange? You're insane!"

"And you're uptight. That visit with Rukia-chan may be more necessary than I thought…"

Ichigo howled in rage, and Isshin made a quick mental comparison between the bright-eyed, animated, and admittedly livid youth before him now and the lost-looking boy with the numb, deadened brown eyes who had been locked into that cell not quite an hour previous. For all that the current Ichigo was alternating between cursing and insulting him, Isshin found that he liked this one a lot better.

The sad, wry twist to his grin returned briefly, unobserved by his furious son. Ichigo could have his dignity when dignity was important, but at any other time, Isshin wanted his son to be as alive as possible…even if 'alive' simply meant 'hopping mad.'

It was better than seeing Ichigo die on the inside long before they ever faced their execution itself.

* * *

Knowing something intellectually and experiencing it yourself were two very different things. Ishida knew this well – the first time this gulf in understanding struck him in all its intensity was the first time his grandfather taught him to shoot a bow. They had started with an ordinary bow and arrow set, child-sized and thoroughly free of any reiatsu. Souken had explained many times the technique of drawing an arrow back and releasing it, how to flex the arms and the way to place your feet. He had told young Uryuu why all of it was important and how it fit together, and so the boy had thought he understood what archery was before he ever picked up the smooth, curved wood and set an arrow to the string.

He had been wrong. The moment he felt the weight of the string in his fingers and the spring of the bow in his hand, he knew he had been wrong. He hadn't understood a thing – the gap between mental knowledge and reality was too wide to truly bridge, after all.

It was the same now. Sitting in Urahara's back room before that round table of his, Inoue to his right and the imposing Chad at his left, facing the man who had sent them all on that first impossible task not quite one year ago…he had considered such a thing happening before. The Shinigami were fickle, in his belief, and focused heavily on their laws and balances and values…virtues all, but at times he hated them for it. Kurosaki Ichigo, and his father Isshin, struck Ishida as a bit of a wild spot, especially looking at it from the Shinigami's perspective. Even before the war ended, it had occurred to Ishida that if the Shinigami didn't try to pull them fully under their rule, they might have the two men killed…allowing two such powerful beings to operate freely was dangerous, even if they were loyal at the moment. His imagination had ranged from quiet assassination to full-scale ceremonial execution…anything was possible in Ishida's admittedly bitter view of the Shinigami, including himself and the other humans involved being destroyed as well. He was rather surprised that they _hadn't _been dragged into the situation themselves, in truth.

He had wondered about the likelihood of Ichigo's death being ordered by the Seireitei, imagined what he might be able to do about it, if anything, and pondered what he might feel if it happened – again, if anything. Nothing he could have imagined quite matched up with the reality. Once again, he had been wrong. If only he hadn't been so _right_, either.

"All of my equipment," Urahara was saying, the tea before him as untouched as the tea before every other person seated around the table, "for opening a senkaimon…taken. It would take me at least a week to recreate it, and even when I did manage that, who could go? You three are some of Ichigo's most powerful friends, but you're locked out."

"Is there a way around the lock?" Ishida tried, shaking off his morbid thoughts in favor of action. "The barrier just keeps us out of the senkaimon, doesn't it?"

"It keeps us out of Soul Society in entirety," Urahara corrected. "Though you wouldn't be able to even enter the gate because it is a Soul Society-linked passageway…in other words, the gateway itself could be said to be part of Soul Society."

"You were thinking of the garganta," Chad said heavily to Ishida, no question in his tone. Ishida nodded. He wasn't sure whether Chad saw it or not; the giant had his head bowed and his hair, as it often did, shadowed his eyes.

"The garganta would be a two-part trip: one to lead you into hueco mundo, and another to enter Soul Society…unfortunately, I need special equipment to open the thing, equipment which can't really go through a garganta when it's busy creating one, and I imagine it would take quite a lot of raw power to force such a portal open in the Seireitei itself. It's not particularly viable, and again, who would we send?"

"Tatsuki-chan is strong," Inoue said quietly. Her eyes were red; she had been crying quietly for quite a while now and was still struggling to keep herself under control. Ishida wished he could do something, but didn't know what.

"But human," Ishida pointed out. "Remember how hard it was for us when we went for Kuchiki-san? We had powers. Arisawa has ordinary human martial arts and enough reiatsu to see hollows and shinigami…that is all."

"What about the vaizard, then?"

Ishida and Urahara started to consider. Surprisingly, it was Chad who shook his head and spoke.

"We would have to find them. Two days ago…Ichigo said they were moving again. He didn't say if they said to where."

"We have a week to search them out, though," Ishida pointed out. "If we can, that is…"

"Soul Society has tried, and failed, for a century," Urahara said, his fan flicking open and shut rhythmically. "We can only hope that they somehow find out what is happening and seek _us_ out instead."

"I found them once," Inoue pointed out. "I followed Kurosaki-kun's reiatsu to do it, but I still managed."

"It's worth a try," Ishida said.

Chad lifted his head at last.

"Yoruichi-san."

"I haven't seen her in days," Urahara replied dismissively, "and there's a very good chance that the shinigami remembered her role in our _last_ rescue mission and have already locked her out."

"So little faith in me, Kisuke. I'm disappointed."

Ishida looked up quickly, following Chad's line of sight to see a black feline lounging on the windowsill just above Urahara's head.

"Yoruichi-san!"

Urahara immediately brightened, craning his neck back to see his friend…and receiving a face-full of black paws as Yoruichi jumped down, using him as a springboard to reach the tabletop.

"_Aaaaaaaah,_ Yoruichi, that hurt!"

"You should have realized I'm sneakier than that, Kisuke," Yoruichi scolded in her deep cat voice, ignoring the man's whining. "The reiatsu signature of a cat is often stronger than that of an ordinary human, and it's difficult to tell two felines apart by their reiatsu alone. Last night, the shinigami took a sample from a black cat walking the streets. That particular cat couldn't enter Soul Society now if she even knew what it was, but _I_ am still free and clear."

"Then you can go!" Inoue abruptly threw herself forward across the table, leaning on both hands and staring Yoruichi directly in the eyes. "Please, Yoruichi-san, _please_ say you'll go!"

"No need to ask," Yoruichi reassured Inoue. "After all, Isshin is my friend, and Ichigo, for a time, was my student. It would be negligent of me to simply leave them when there's a chance I could do something. But first, we have some other things to take care of."

"Like replacing my senkaimon equipment," Urahara said.

"Yes, there is that, but you're all forgetting something…or some_one_. Two someones, now that I think about it."

Ishida frowned, puzzled. There was Arisawa Tatsuki, who surely deserved to know, but he couldn't think of a second person or what they could have to do with this. His pondering was short-lived, however, for an instant later, Chad straightened again from his slouch and spoke with understanding coloring his voice – the most emotion they had heard from him since Urahara explained what was happening to their friend.

"Ichigo's sisters."

Inoue's eyes widened and Ishida himself was somewhat taken aback. He knew from a brief mention of them months ago that Kurosaki Ichigo had two younger sisters, but little else; it was no wonder they had not occurred to him when Yoruichi mentioned people they had forgotten.

"They'll be all alone!" Inoue cried. "With Kurosaki-san…and Kurosaki-kun…and their mother already…"

The auburn-haired girl jumped up abruptly, bowing quickly to Urahara and Yoruichi.

"Thank you both, but I'm going to go find them and take them to my apartment. They shouldn't be on their own."

Within moments, she was gone. Urahara tapped his closed fan against his nose a few times before unfurling it with a quick twitch of his wrist.

"Well, that leaves you two young gentlemen to help me hunt down senkaimon-building equipment, doesn't it? Shall we get started?"

Ishida looked over at Chad, who was already standing up. The giant had no sleeves to roll up, but Ishida got the impression nonetheless of someone who was preparing himself for long, hard, willing work. The young Quincy sighed and also stood.

"I swore not to work alongside Shinigami," he said coldly. As Urahara gazed up at him from under hat brim and over fan edge and Chad turned his head questioningly in his direction, he started working his sleeves up to his elbows. "I suppose I'm more working _against _them this way, though…the majority, at any rate. What do you need us to do?"

* * *

**A/N**: I just thought I might explain here and now what I'm doing here. Yes, I know that the "Soul Society tries to execute Ichigo for being a Vaizard" theme has been played upon more times in this fandom than can be easily counted. I'm hardly original in that. But the point of this story is not just a drama-fic in which everybody hates Ichigo and tries to kill him, nor is it even something meant to emphasise his power by pointing out how much it is feared. What I want to do here is a little less simple...

One of my favorite relationships in Bleach is the father-son one between Isshin and Ichigo. I think it's fairly obvious that Isshin cares about his son, and that for all Ichigo curses his father during wake-up calls and surprise attacks, if he ever lost Isshin he would find it very hard to recover. I don't want to make this an angst-fest without purpose, of course, but I do want to try exploring this relationship a bit in less-than-fair weather circumstances.

Another reason why I'm doing this might be seen above, if I succeeded in portraying the Central 46 the way I wanted to. I don't want to show them as a bunch of overgrown bullies trying to keep every little bit of wayward power under their thumb, as is extremely common in this sort of fic. Instead, I wanted to show them as loyal to the King's Laws almost to a fault...almost. Remember that promises are taken seriously in Bleach - and in a good bit of Japanese culture itself, if I'm assuming correctly - and in this story at least, they've all taken oaths to uphold the Law in its every aspect. I don't expect you to forgive them for acting against our 'good guys,' but I'd love it if I managed to make it understandable.

One last note: expect this to be short. I've got two other monster-sized fics running right now, and this doesn't need to become one as well. I have everything in this planned out and I hope to have it done in about ten chapters...I hope it fervently. Even if it isn't, however, this will never become a novel-length project. Time will pass quickly in this story. It may even seem somewhat rushed (I hope not, but I realize it's entirely likely). Updates, however, may be slow...mostly because of those two monster-size projects. This is just a heads-up.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you enjoy the next one, once I write it up and get it out. Thank you, and bye!

**#2: **Everything from the bit in the second division holding cells down to the bottom is newly-added as of 7/11/10. Originally, it was going to be in chapter two. Then I realized that these sections, in terms of chronology, really were more continuations of the first chapter than the start of a new one. Plus, there is something of a time-skip in my plotline just after these sections of writing, a time-skip which would have been very out of place in the middle of a chapter but would work quite well at the beginning of a new one. I do hope that this update was found by everybody who has already read the original chapter one. I'm sorry about any confusion!


	2. The Spirit and the Body

Something was going on.

The only problem was that Kon had no idea _what_. And after a life of paranoia such as his, not knowing something this big made him distinctly uneasy.

It had started a few nights ago. The little she-demon had packed him into a duffle bag with jammies, toothbrush, and pillow, talking excitedly about a sleepover at a friend's house. So it was a thoroughly miserable Kon who, upon hearing Ichigo give them a gruff farewell and their crazy dad shriek something about having a good time, silently cursed both of their names just to lift his own spirits.

It was foolish and he knew it, but he couldn't help but regret those curses when the girls returned the next day to find both father and brother gone without a trace.

And it was without a trace indeed. No notes, no messages left with neighbors, no obvious signs of struggle (from what Kon could see, immobile as he was forced to be while Yuzu carried him about), not even any lingering spiritual scent to suggest a hollow or other otherworldly attacker or distraction. In fact, he even caught a glimpse of Ichigo's shinigami badge just under the teen's bed when Yuzu searched the room quickly.

That's when he _really_ knew something weird was up. Whenever Ichigo went out, that badge was the first thing he grabbed.

Then, suddenly, his Goddess had showed up at the front door and told the girls (with a sunny smile) to pack up some stuff for a few nights. They were going to her house.

Kon managed to forget about the vanishing of Ichigo and Isshin (because who cared about them, really?) for a day at least, being utterly joyful at the prospect of spending several days at the abode of his Goddess.

Then things changed again. The Goddess made the girls pack up again and walked them (and Kon) over to the home of her flat friend, leaving them all there. Kon wanted terribly to follow her, but he could only cry silently, clutched tightly as he was in Yuzu's skinny arms. Jerked so roughly away from his paradise and with plenty of opportunity to think, he fell back to wondering just where Ichigo and Isshin could have gone. The more he thought about it, the less he liked it all.

There were too many similarities to other events, and it seemed all too possible to him. Soul Society hadn't exactly been unwilling, in the past, to throw away that which became morally ambiguous or which served no further purpose to them.

And if anyone was morally ambiguous, it was them.

What if they _were_ in Soul Society's hands? What if they were in trouble? What if one of them _talked_ and just happened to mention the presence of a _certain illegal someone_ who lived, however innocently, in the real world when he should be _dead_?

Kon spent days frozen in fear, afraid that if he so much as twitched an ear on his own shinigami would swoop out of thin air to capture him. But nothing happened, and soon the stress was driving him restless. Finally, after several days and nights of pointless terror, Kon figured that enough was enough. Once Karin and Yuzu were asleep in the spare bedroom that had been given to them, Kon got up himself, forced the window open, and jumped out onto the moonlit grass below.

Now, just to find that scary stripy-hatted guy and get some answers…

* * *

Leadership could easily be said to be one of the most difficult jobs in existence. Holding a duty and responsibility for any great number of people is demanding, taxing, and so very often depressingly thankless. A good leader must weigh his every decision so that, in the end, it benefits the entirety of the people rather than just a small group or two. He must enforce every law, even against himself and his own subordinates, and he must often fight to do what is right over what is popular or easy.

Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto had borne that burden for over a millennium as the Captain-commander of Soul Society, and he knew well the costs of his responsibility. He had seen many old friends and students fall in battle, seen some turn their backs on the Shinigami lifestyle, even seen some executed for terrible acts against the Law, and through it all, he had been required by duty to stand tall and unmoving, a sturdy pillar for the Soul Society to lean against. If he wavered, if he willingly turned against the Laws that formed the base of Soul Society, what would happen then?

As such, when the orders and charges came down from the Central 46, it was Yamamoto's duty as a military commander to see them carried out, no matter what his personal thoughts on them were. He passed the order on to the second division and the rigidly dependable Captain Soi Fon. She had seen the tactical error of confronting such powerful beings as her targets head-on on their own home turf, and she had taken steps to counter that error, sending her men at night in a flash mission. Barely a day after their capture was ordered, the Kurosaki father and son were in Shinigami hands, and Yamamoto could only file the paperwork for the mission as completed and feel vaguely disappointed in them for being brought in so easily. He remembered Kurosaki Isshin – under a different name and as a Shinigami, but certainly the same man – and he had been impressed with his son, Kurosaki Ichigo, however young the child was and however short a time he had known of him. It was a shame, what was happening to them, but it was almost inevitable, and there was nothing he could do.

Yamamoto knew his duty, but there were others he worried about. Namely his students, his sons in all but blood, Kyoraku Shunsui and Ukitake Juushiro. They were strong, if young, and they took to most of their responsibilities well despite their shortcomings, but they had already exhibited a disquieting belief in personal justice over that of the whole. At that time, Yamamoto's duty had been interrupted by the revelation of an even greater traitor in their midst, and he was able to put aside and seemingly forget his subordinates' suddenly-minor rebellion. Such a stroke of mixed fortune was unlikely to happen twice. If Shunsui and Juushiro took an interest in the Kurosakis' case, if they acted against the Law once again, then he would have no choice but to strike them down himself. And this time…

Yamamoto paused, laying aside his brush with a sigh. The administrative duties of running the Soul Society suddenly seemed both heavy and insignificant. His mind had become restless with its musings; he needed a distraction.

And almost immediately he was granted one, though it was not quite what he might have hoped for. The doors that led to his open-air office creaked open slightly, and two very familiar faces – one framed by prematurely white hair, the other topped by brown waves and a slightly incongruous straw hat – peeked around it. Yamamoto was immediately reminded of days when those same faces peeked around other doors the same way. Back then, those faces were younger, softer, and smaller, with wider, less care-worn eyes. Back then, those faces had looked to him in trust for guidance, and he had given them everything of his wisdom and much of his knowledge, as well as a part of his closely-guarded heart.

He hoped, deep inside, that whatever they were up to at the moment would not lead to a clash between his duty and their idealism. Not again.

He sat still and silent, having no need to acknowledge either captain with words. They had seen him there, and they knew full well that even if his old eyes had somehow missed them, his sense of reiatsu could not. As for Shunsui and Juushiro, once they had ascertained that Yamamoto was alone in his office, they slipped inside and shut the door behind themselves. Then they rooted themselves before his desk in a stance and a manner that told Yamamoto that they had something to say, and they would not leave until they had said it.

"Yamamoto-soutaicho." Juushiro nodded firmly, but with respect. Shunsui merely gave a cocky grin, tipping the brim of his customary hat.

"Yama-jii."

"Is there something which requires my attention?" Yamamoto asked gruffly, trying to give the impression that he was busy at the moment. Unfortunately, he had just laid aside his brush, and it was too late now to pick it back up.

Shunsui glanced left, toward the blue sky visible beyond the open side of Yamamoto's balcony office.

"Your attention? Well, for starters, I'd say that hell butterfly is looking for it."

Yamamoto didn't miss the smirk on Shunsui's face, nor the brief flicker of an echoing smile on Juushiro's. Slightly suspicious, he extended a finger for the insect to land on. When the message was done, he opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows slightly at his students. Neither one looked the least abashed. Without giving any other outward sign of emotion, he gave the butterfly his reply and sent it soaring outside again. Then he turned his full attention upon his former students.

"You will apologize to Soi Fon-taicho for causing her division alarm. You will also refrain from slipping away from your escorts in the midst of Rukongai, especially when you are simply coming here in the end."

"We were merely giving them a training exercise," Juushiro replied calmly, though he was still smiling at the corners.

"I'm certain that Soi Fon-taicho is capable of training her own men," Yamamoto replied dryly. "Now, was there a reason why you came here, or did you simply wish to demonstrate to me your ability to outperform members of the stealth force in childish games?"

"Perhaps there was a little of that," Shunsui replied, reaching into the front fold of his jacket, "but yes, there was another reason. Here."

And with absolutely no further ceremony, a packet of papers was tossed upon Yamamoto's desk. He looked down upon it, recognizing first Juushiro's clear brushwork and second Shunsui's distinct word choice, but could not tell its purpose from the writing on the first page alone. He picked it up and flipped through the pages, scanning quickly. In moments, the meaning was made clear. Yamamoto looked up at his students and waited for further explanation. He didn't have to ask; they knew what he wanted.

"We figured that this time, we'd try the proper channels first," Shunsui said, folding his arms into his sleeves.

"It's a petition to the Central 46 and, if need be, the Soul King himself," Juushiro continued, "for allowances to be made in the Law for the Vaizard and for a pardon in light of Kurosaki Isshin's assistance in battle."

"The Law…is not so easily changed," Yamamoto warned them, setting the packet down again in the center of his desk. "Like the stone at the center of the mountain – to carve it out and change its shape is to threaten the very stability of the land above."

"We know it's a long shot, Yama-jii." Shunsui smiled, ducking his head so the brim of his hat covered his eyes completely. "But this is worth the attempt at least…and who knows? These guys just saved the Soul King his crown. Maybe he'd be willing to try a little landscaping for that."

Yamamoto gazed at the petition for a long while, so long that the two before his desk began to fear he had fallen asleep. At last he lifted his head and opened his eyes, fixing them both with a serious look.

"I will sign it as the Sou-taicho of Soul Society, and I will see it passed onward from here to the Central 46," he promised, "but do not hope too much. It often takes years, even decades, for such things to even be considered. It may be that Kurosaki Isshin and Ichigo cannot be saved."

"Ah," Juushiro said softly. His smile remained, but his eyes showed a faint sadness that had not been present before.

"We were afraid of that," Shunsui continued, just as quietly.

"You have done enough with this; you _cannot_ do more," Yamamoto stressed. It was vital that they understand…"If this petition is passed on to the Law, it could spare others. Do not endanger it by acting against the Soul Society, even if it means that the Kurosakis must be sacrificed."

His words reached them at least in part. Yamamoto was perceptive and had known them both long; he could see the rapid changes in their faces and eyes as they realized the truth of what he said. Since they were the ones to write and present this petition to the Law, they would have to act the parts of the perfect Gotei captains, loyal and respectable. Openly disregarding the decisions of the Central 46 by acting outright to stop this execution would only cause the petition to be thrown out completely, perhaps even cause the Central 46 to refuse to consider any similar petitions in the future.

In short, either Shunsui and Juushiro could follow through with the petition and stay their hands in any other action, or they could disregard the petition and work directly against the Gotei itself to save two individuals temporarily…temporarily, because then they would all be fugitives, and there was no guarantee that they could outrun the Gotei forever.

Juushiro bowed his head with a soft sigh.

"It simply doesn't seem just," he said.

"It is the decision of the Central 46, and it is according to the King's Law," Yamamoto replied, and that was meant to end it. His students were always obstinate, however.

"Ichigo-kun and the other Vaizard are not hollows in the traditional sense – the sense the Law was written in," Shunsui argued, as though he thought that convincing Yamamoto of this would solve everything. "They do not eat souls, nor do they upset the balance of the worlds. Perhaps the most of them aren't our allies, but they aren't enemies either…unless we force them to be."

"As for Isshin-san," Juushiro continued, "yes, he was in the wrong to break his solemn oaths, but doing so never caused anyone hurt. In fact, he may have saved us by doing this…"

"Enough."

Yamamoto stood up, leaning upon the curled and knotted cane that disguised his Ryujin Jakka.

"The Law is our base. It is not about end results nor is it about interpretation. If we allowed ourselves to be caught up in ideas that the end justifies all means or that hollows may be considered innocents depending upon what they do or do not eat, the Law would lose all force.

"Do not argue with me. You have written all of this, and it will be seen by those who may have the power to reconsider it. There is nothing more to do here. You should return to your divisions now; there is always other work to be done."

For a long, tense moment, Juushiro and Shunsui gazed at Yamamoto across his desk, and he looked back. Then the two younger captains bowed, murmured thanks, and left the room quietly. Outside, Yamamoto felt the faint whispers of suppressed reiatsu as the two captains were rejoined by four members of Soi Fon's stealth force, and then they were all gone.

Yamamoto brushed his long, old fingers against the legal petition and leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed fully.

This might not save the Kurosakis, but perhaps it would save his students by forcing them to hold their blades in check, and perhaps it could indeed save the other Vaizard in the same stroke.

It was a small, selective hope, but it was a hope nonetheless.

A leader had to look out for the greatest possible part of his people, even if it meant that one or two became sacrifices in the process.

* * *

Imprisonment was not quite what Ichigo expected it to be. He had been certain that he would go stir-crazy or mad with boredom within days. Perhaps he might have, if not for his father. Isshin had an uncanny knack for babbling about whatever random subject he could come up with the moment Ichigo began to drift into counting blocks of stone in the wall or started to pace his floor and think of the freedom he once had to walk where he pleased. And even if the subject was tame enough at first, sooner or later Isshin would change it to infuriating comments about Ichigo's personal life or insults pertaining to anything else about him. Their shouting matches were spectacular. Ichigo was surprised that nobody had shown up in all nine days just to tell them to shut up.

It was, perhaps, slightly unfair to imply that Isshin did nothing but babble and drive Ichigo to rage. Sometimes – a very rare sometimes – Ichigo managed to take control of their conversations for a short while and draw out a slightly more serious Isshin. It hardly ever lasted long; so far, the only time Ichigo managed to make Isshin end the talk on a less-boisterous-than-usual note was when he asked how his parents ever met. Despite the calm ending of that conversation, the body of it still managed to fluctuate between hyperactivity and serenity on Isshin's part. That serenity on his father's face as he spoke of Masaki made Ichigo realize something deep down inside: Isshin had loved his mother with all of his heart. This, in turn, made him wonder something else:

"Was it worth it?"

Isshin opened his eyes and looked up from his position on the sleeping mat he had dragged to the exact center of his cell. It was late; the lights outside the row of cells had been dimmed for sleeping. Ichigo considered this the best time to get a fairly serious talk out of his father, as once the man lay down for the night he was typically too exhausted to be hyperactive. Ichigo sat down cross-legged in front of the separating bars, staring through the dim light at the white figure and slightly blurred facial features that were Isshin.

"What're you talking about? Go back to sleep, Ichigo, you're babbling."

"You had to know this could happen," Ichigo continued, ignoring his father's sleepy mumbling, "you didn't seem too surprised when they said…whatever it was, about their law. Why'd you risk that when you ran off with mom?"

Isshin sat up fully, facing Ichigo with a slight frown across his still-drowsy face.

"I'm surprised. I'd've thought you would know, if anyone."

"Dad, _I'm_ not the one stuck here for desertion."

"No, but…what about Rukia-chan?"

"No stupid comments about _anything_ to do with her! I'm being serious here, dad!"

"Me too," Isshin countered. "I meant when you came to Soul Society to rescue her. Didn't _you_ know the risk then?"

"I…yeah, but it wasn't the same thing."

"Yes, it was. You could've died in battle, or even been captured and executed for invading here. You defied Seireitei by trying to stop their execution. How is that different?"

"It just is," Ichigo said, shaking his head. "I wasn't doing it to…you know, marry her or anything."

"Not that that's a bad idea," Isshin said. Ichigo scowled hard at him, but it had just as much affect on his father as usual: none.

"She would've _died _if I hadn't come. Mom wasn't in any danger, but you took off for her anyhow. Why?"

Isshin was silent for a long while. Ichigo peered through the gloom around them; he could just barely make out Isshin's face, which seemed to be wrapped up in a wide smile.

"Someday, son, you'll understand what it means to love someone so much that you'll risk anything just to make her happy."

Ichigo blinked, having tensed in expectation of a typically-Isshin remark shouted for the entire compound to hear. The quiet tone and serious answer surprised him enough that he didn't notice Isshin laying back down. It briefly occurred to him that he wasn't going to have a 'someday' in which he _could_ understand, but Isshin seemed to have forgotten for the moment, and Ichigo didn't feel like correcting him. Instead, he still wanted to know…

"But was it worth it?" he blurted out his original question.

"Fourteen years of unbelievable happiness?" Isshin murmured with his eyes closed, "A home and career unlike anything I'd ever had before? Three great children…even if one of them grew up to be a delinquent shinigami-hollow with a disturbing lack of interest in giving me grandbabies…"

Ichigo growled, forming a retort in his mind.

"…more worth it than you know. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat, and I'd make the most of every second."

Ichigo felt his indignant argument die away.

"Dad…"

"Go to sleep, Ichigo. It's late. Well past bed-time."

"I'm too old for _bed-time_."

"Curfew, then. Don't argue, I'm your father."

"That's only more reason _to _argue," Ichigo said, but he stood up and walked over to his own mat in the corner anyhow. As he settled down to sleep, he thought he heard Isshin murmur softly,

"My family…I don't regret it a bit, Ichigo."

* * *

It was difficult to tell time in Urahara's oversized basement. The ceiling, painted like a summer sky, never changed color the way the real thing did. His sun-like light source didn't move, didn't even dim or brighten with time. Days could slip by, and if one was occupied enough, he would never know, caught here in perpetual daylight and season-less rock formations.

Urahara, however, could generally tell…if he paid attention, that is. The basement was riddled with carefully disguised vents that allowed fresh air to circulate from outside – it grew stuffy without them – and so, in certain seasons, minute changes in temperature could give him a small clue as to the time.

Right now, it was late. The summer heat of the daylight hours had long since subsided, and now the air was pleasantly cool, approaching a slight chill. Nearing midnight, then, or perhaps even later than that. Eleven days since the two Kurosaki males had vanished and the younger's human friends had been blocked from Soul Society. Eleven days since his Senkaimon equipment had been stolen. Eleven days of hard work (most of which was done by a stoic Chad or a complaining Ishida – Urahara considered giving them some coupons for his store out of appreciation) on the thing that stood before him now.

It looked, Urahara mused, like little more than a heap of junk assembled roughly into a square frame. Iron bars and wooden support beams made up most of the structure, nailed, riveted, screwed, welded, and in one spot lashed together with a length of clothesline. The important stuff, the reiatsu-conducting white stone, lined only the inside of the frame, and this with several small gaps between the chunks of material. It was unsteady in form and would probably be somewhat unstable in use, but it was the best they could do on such short notice, and with the grace period already halfway over, they could spare no more time on nitpicky details.

"This is it, then?"

Urahara looked down at the black cat at his feet and nodded seriously.

"It doesn't look like much," Yoruichi said with slight scorn. "This whole rescue idea is going to be utterly pointless if I fall into the netherworld halfway there, you know."

"I have great faith in your ability to run faster than my gate could fall apart," Urahara replied, eliciting a brief chuckle from the feline beside him.

"Ah, and since it's now _my_ fault if I don't make it, then I shall simply _have_ to succeed." Yoruichi stood up, stretching fluidly. "Enough dawdling. Open the gate, if you please, Kisuke, Tessai."

Urahara glanced over at the former leader of the Kido corps, standing like a statue to one side of the gate. As always, his face was unreadable, and he had been silent enough that Urahara had almost forgotten he was there. Tessai caught Urahara's glance and nodded slightly; he was ready whenever the shinigami-turned-shopkeeper would be.

"First," Urahara said, turning his attention back to Yoruichi, "I have something to give you. Here…"

Urahara reached into his coat and, from some hidden pocket there, withdrew a flat box the size of his open palm. He opened it and out fluttered a black swallowtail butterfly. For an instant Yoruichi thought that it was a common hell butterfly used to relay private messages in the Seireitei and guide Shinigami through the gates, but a second look revealed that this insect lacked the distinctive red markings of the usual species. It was black in its entirety.

"A little something I've been working on while the gate was being put together," Urahara said, raising a finger for the butterfly to land on. "Theoretically untraceable by twelfth division, this little fellow and his friends can fly messages between the worlds without the use of a large, shinigami-sized gate. Instead, they open their own paths between the dimensions. I've not had the chance to test it thoroughly, of course, but my lab tests indicate that it should work perfectly. Stay in touch, all right?"

With a flick of his finger, he set the butterfly aloft again, and it fluttered over to circle the black cat's head. Yoruichi glanced at it once more.

"Impressive," she said, "and, for once, very useful. You will keep me updated with any changes on this end, I trust?"

"Of course. Assuming there _are_ any changes, that is."

"I would have expected the Vaizard to realize something was wrong by now," Yoruichi said by way of agreement. "Could they have left Karakura?"

Urahara shook his head.

"The Vaizard knit themselves into a clan-like structure where they consider each other kin through their hollow halves. Whether Kurosaki accepted it fully in the end or not, they certainly think of him as one of themselves. They wouldn't go anywhere far, not with a brother living here."

"Well, then, at least we can be fairly certain that they'll go to the aid of their 'brother,' assuming Inoue manages to find them in time."

Yoruichi turned to face the gate again.

"And assuming I succeed, with or without aid…will you be ready when the time comes?"

Urahara thoughtfully regarded the ceiling of his oversized basement.

"You know," he replied conversationally, "I've been thinking it's about time for a change in scenery…"

"I'll be counting on you, then."

Without further words, Urahara moved to the gate-side opposite Tessai and both men turned to face the wobbly structure. Raising their hands, they activated the portal, and the empty space in the middle of the frame filled with a field of violet-white light.

"You only have a few minutes," Urahara said over the sounds of static bursts across the gate's surface. "Run well!"

Yoruichi made a noise more cat than human in reply. In a streak of black, followed by a smaller streak that was the butterfly, she leapt through the frame and into the tunnel that bridged the human world and the Soul Society. Moving without any slower human companions, she was through in a mere minute, leaping out through a tiny, cat-sized portal at the top of a pointed roof just outside of the Seireitei. It was night here, as it was in the human world; no one was awake or aware to see her entrance. With the black butterfly fluttering above her, Yoruichi looked over the pristine white buildings of the Shinigami court and sighed, thinking back to the last time she had done this.

"Well," she said softly to herself, rolling her shoulders, "here I go again…"

The black cat slipped off into the night.

Back in Urahara's basement, two men regarded a steaming pile of rubble that had once been a senkaimon. They had held the gate for as long as possible before it finally collapsed, the wood bursting into flames and the metal twisting from the strain of holding spirit particles in place. They stood wordlessly as they were for several long moments before Urahara nodded sharply.

"She made it," he said with utter certainty, and with that he spun about on his _geta_, marching off toward the ladder. Tessai hesitated a mere moment before following.

It was time to see if there was anything else they could do.

* * *

Searching Karakura town for the Vaizard's new hideout was comparable to searching an uncut hayfield for a needle that was invisible unless you happened to point the special flashlight in your hand directly at it at a distance of about ten feet or less. The fact that this search had to be done on foot only made things even harder; Karakura wasn't a large city, but it was still big enough that walking the breadth of it took up several hours easily.

Tatsuki had to hand it to Orihime, though; the girl hadn't given up yet.

Just over a week ago, strange word had reached the Arisawas: they had been given temporary guardianship of Kurosaki Karin and Yuzu. The papers hadn't given a clear reason why, and the girls themselves didn't know either. All that was certain was that their father and older brother had vanished, seemingly off of the face of the earth, and that the paperwork was definitely filled out in Isshin's scrawling doctor's handwriting. It had seemed strange to Tatsuki, and she had confronted Orihime about it without delay.

The truth had shocked her. Immediately upon learning it, she had stormed down to Urahara shoten and demanded he allow her to go and help her childhood friend. She wasn't entirely sure what Urahara did, only that it felt like the air itself had gotten heavier, pressing down on her shoulders and running too thick to inhale properly. When the pressure suddenly diminished and Tatsuki knelt, gasping for breath, Urahara bent over and told her that this proved that her task would not be to fight this time; she was little use to anyone if she died, after all. Instead, she could help in other ways…

Ever since then, she had thrown herself into working, aiding whoever needed it: scavenging building material with Chad for that shady shopkeeper; escorting a distracted Inoue around town, often accompanied by Ishida; training feverishly on her own in the hope that she might get strong enough to do something more; and at night, when her exhausted friends had gone home and the dojo was closed, distracting a distraught Yuzu and an increasingly suspicious Karin however possible.

No matter what she did, however, it never seemed to be enough. Tatsuki hadn't gotten strong enough in time; their first world-breaching gate was already rubble, having been used just two days previously to send a single rescuer through. Now, Urahara had them gathering materials for another, stronger gate, one which would be used for the escape…if anyone was _able_ to escape, that is. As for Orihime, she had been searching for these allies, these _Vaizard_, for thirteen days, roaming the shadiest parts of town with her escort trailing behind her, investigating every abandoned building she could find. They'd had no luck so far, and Tatsuki had to wonder whether this was a good thing or a bad one. What kind of friends did Ichigo have that would hide in these sorts of places, after all? Tatsuki knew he had a poor opinion of gangs and she couldn't see him joining up with one, and yet…

She grimaced at yet another line of graffiti decorating the side of a building and hurried after Orihime and Chad, who were starting toward the old wharf at the very edge of Karakura. Old and in disrepair, the wharf had been abandoned years ago in favor of a new port which was apparently better situated in the water and further from the rocks and sandbars that lurked near this portion of the coast. Orihime had checked this area first, but now she wanted to return to it, just in case she had missed something. She had searched every other dead spot in town at least twice, and so Tatsuki wasn't surprised she was returning to this one now. Still, the martial artist wished that these 'friends' had a better taste in hiding places; Orihime was, unfortunately, a tempting target for the types of humanity that usually frequented these spots.

This was why Chad was Tatsuki's favorite escorting companion; one look at him, and anybody nearby tended to think twice about picking on two girls wandering through the bad parts of town. Days when Ishida helped protect Orihime were generally a little more active.

Now the three were proceeding down a line of piers and storage sheds, looking out for anything out of the ordinary. Tatsuki had been ignoring the occasional missing pier or shed, and so it was a bit of a surprise when Orihime turned aside with a sharp and joyful cry. Tatsuki looked over to see an empty space which might once have held one of the concrete shacks, but which her eyes had slid right over. Orihime was exploring the front of this space, bending over and examining the ground as if it were the most interesting thing she had seen yet. Tatsuki felt a tiny flash of annoyance; she felt as though time was short, they had to keep moving, this wasn't the moment to be staring at a completely inconspicuous empty lot…

"What are you doing?" she asked, a little more sharply than she had intended. "Orihime…"

"This is it, Tatsuki-chan!"

"Inoue," Chad said quietly, "Arisawa is right. We should keep searching. Nothing is there."

"Then why are those bugs avoiding it?" Orihime challenged, pointing at the concrete on the ground. Sure enough, as they watched, a beetle scurried forward, stopped, and then turned to the side for no apparent reason. A moment later a seagull swooped over their heads, passing high above the lot and only diving for the ground once it reached the far side. Chad and Tatsuki exchanged glances – or came as close as they could, considering Chad's hair – and shrugged. It didn't prove anything, but they were willing to let Orihime be herself for a minute before they made her move on.

As they watched, the orange-haired girl slid her fingers along an invisible line on the ground, feeling for something. At last she paused and, with another happy sound, slid them forward, prying something upwards. Like a curtain, their view of the lot rippled, and in the space around Orihime they saw bits of a concrete shed, much like the others around it. Tatsuki's mouth opened slightly.

"Here we are!" Orihime called, almost cheerful again. "Hurry inside; I don't think I should hold this up too long."

Getting Chad through the small gap between Orihime and the edge of whatever she had lifted up was a trick, but soon enough all three were standing in front of a concrete shed not unlike the others around it. A shed where Tatsuki had only seen an empty lot before.

Whoever Ichigo's friends were, they definitely weren't an ordinary gang…or an ordinary _anything_, for that matter. For this reason, when Orihime knocked on the roll-up metal door, Tatsuki expected someone in an ancient kimono or some other outlandish attire to open it. Instead, she got a piano-toothed man in an orange button-down shirt, slacks, and a tie.

"Orihime-chan!" he shouted with a grin stretched across his face, and almost before Tatsuki knew what was happening, he threw his arms around her friend in a hug. Tatsuki reacted immediately, instinct developed from months of dealing with Chizuru taking over. One swing, and the strange man was down on the ground with one hand clamped over his right eye.

"Oooooow! That hurt!"

"You can just keep your hands off her! Who are you?"

"Well! Isn't that rude! _You're_ the visitor here…normally, I'd say intruder, except you came with Orihime-chan…_and_ you _hit_ me, so you can tell me your name first!"

The man picked himself up and dusted off. Tatsuki was pleased to see the area around his eye already turning slightly red and swelling; her hit was going to leave a mark.

"Arisawa Tatsuki," she replied, crossing her arms. The man waited for a moment, then nodded his head at Chad, who was standing silently behind her. When it became obvious that Chad wouldn't be introducing himself, Tatsuki did it for him. "And this is Sado Yasutora, but most of us call him Chad."

"That's better. Hirako Shinji."

"Hirako…wait," Tatsuki said, a buried memory tugging at her attention. "Wait…I could swear I've heard that name before…and you're pretty familiar, too…"

"Do you have reiatsu?"

"Rei…what?"

"Tatsuki-chan can see ghosts and shinigami and hollows," Orihime replied instead. "So yes, some."

"Ah. That explains it a bit. Memory modifiers don't work very well on individuals with heightened reiatsu. Am I wrong in assuming that you went to Karakura High this last year?"

Tatsuki snapped her fingers, the memory finally clicking into place. "Hirako Shinji, that weird transfer student! Now I remember you. You were the one talking with Ichigo that one day."

"You know Ichigo?"

Tatsuki nodded, and Shinji finally moved aside in the doorway.

"Well, might as well come in, then. We don't allow visitors mostly, but hey…"

As they entered, Shinji kept talking.

"Hachi's downstairs. You want me to get him, Orihime-chan?"

"No, thank you, Hirako-kun. I didn't come because I needed to talk to Hachigen-san. Actually, it's about Kurosaki-kun."

Shinji paused in rolling the door back down.

"Oh? Well he's not here right now. Last I sensed, he was in Soul Society…probably visiting his shinigami friends or something. Sorry you came all this way…"

Orihime was shaking her head and biting her lip. She inhaled sharply, like someone trying to keep tears at bay. Tatsuki laid a hand on her friend's shoulder, knowing that if she didn't calm down, Orihime would start crying again…she often did when she thought too much about what was going on. And since Chad was as silent as ever, Tatsuki decided that this time, she would do the explaining.

"There's trouble…"

"YOU BET THERE'S TROUBLE!"

Suddenly Shinji was airborne, and standing in his place was a blonde-haired kid wearing a pink jacket and white t-shirt with a sandal in her hand. Her face was livid as she shook the shoe at the three visitors.

"What the hell're you thinking, baldy, bringin' them in like that? Has that stupid backwards thing you do scrambled your brain?"

"They're Ichigo's friends!" Shinji protested, picking himself up across the room and nursing the side of his face – the same side that Tatsuki had punched.

"And that makes everything okay? Well, great to know! Why don't we invite _all_ his _friends_, eh? YOU STUPID BALDY!"

"This is important, though!" Shinji said, ducking the sandal again. "Really important! _Isn't it important, guys?_"

"I'll give you important, you—"

"Stop it!" Orihime suddenly shouted, her hands flying up to her temples. A triangular shield suddenly appeared between Shinji and the sandal-wielding girl, forcing them to a halt. "Stop it," Orihime repeated, and her shoulder under Tatsuki's hand was shaking. "Stop fighting. Kurosaki-kun…Kurosaki…"

Tatsuki gripped both shoulders, lending Orihime support as the girl finally broke down and started to cry. The shield shattered, and the martial artist regarded the two blondes before them coolly.

"Unless we do something soon," she said, "Ichigo and his dad will both die. Is that _important_ enough for you?"

After a brief moment of apparent confusion, Shinji's mouth stretched into a deep frown. A suspicious light entered his eyes; one could practically see the thoughts wheeling through his head. Even Hiyori had lowered her sandal.

"I think," Shinji said at last, "that you'd better wait here while we get everyone else. And then, you tell us everything."

* * *

Ichigo hadn't ever thought much about the etched tally marks so often shown in the cells seen in certain TV shows or movies. They were a minor detail, maybe something put into the set to show how long a particular character had been stuck in the place, but otherwise nothing of importance, despite their ubiquitous quality. Of course, back then the closest he'd ever come to 'imprisonment' was the school hours he was required to sit through, and even that was far more Keigo's comparison than his own. School wasn't half bad – at least it only lasted a few hours each day, and there was plenty to do. Time didn't feel like it was running together and slipping away from him there…not to that same extent.

Ichigo thought he understood those tally marks a little better now. They kept the days distinct and provided a stable base to set time upon. He wished he'd thought of them earlier; he had no idea now how many days had passed. More than seven; that was the last number he was entirely certain of. After that, he slipped up, though he knew he couldn't be too far off. After all, after fourteen days, he and Isshin would be moving to the white tower at Seireitei's center.

It had been fourteen days by his count for two days now, and still no one had come. He was certain of his count to seven, though. It had to be close.

The door at the end of the cell bank slid open. Ichigo scrambled to his feet and watched eight white-robed individuals enter, each one with a pronged staff wrapped up with red cord. He took a deep breath.

Fourteen days, today.

In contrast to Ichigo, Isshin hadn't bothered standing when their escorts came in, nor when they stood in two groups of four before the cells. Instead, he lounged across the sleeping mat lazily, just as though he was comfortably at home with friends and family rather than in a cell facing his prison wardens.

"Kurosaki Isshin," said one of the guards before him, "two weeks ago, you were found guilty by the Central 46 of the crime of willful desertion of the King's Guard. Your sentence is execution by kido. Do you understand?"

"What's not to get?" Isshin replied bluntly, scratching the tip of his nose. "Seems pretty clear-cut to me."

"Stand," came the calm reply, "and we will take you to the Tower of Penitence, to consider your crime."

Ichigo watched Isshin stand up and the group of white-robed figures enter his cell, but then his attention was taken away by those standing before him. It seemed that they had been waiting for the others to finish speaking before starting themselves.

"Kurosaki Ichigo," one intoned – the one closest and to Ichigo's right, by the tiny movements of air below his long cloth mask, "you are a Vaizard, a hollowed soul. Two weeks ago, the Central 46 granted you the sentence of execution by kido rather than immediate slaughter. Do you understand?"

"No," Ichigo replied belligerently.

"What part is misunderstood?" the masked man replied patiently. Ichigo hesitated. He had already argued all of this with the Central 46 itself, and they hadn't changed their tune. Also, after fourteen days of stewing on it, he thought he had their side of the issue pretty well figured out – as much as he disagreed with it – and there wasn't really anything more that these guys could explain that would make him any happier with things.

"Nevermind," he finally grumbled. "I don't get it, but nothing's going to change your minds."

"Then you understand?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Ichigo shot back, and the door of his cell opened. Immediately, he thought of attacking and making a break for it, but the memory of what happened last time occurred to him. In addition, he also had to get his dad out of there…

_But when have impossible odds ever stopped me before?_

Without another thought, he charged.

In the next cell, Isshin had already been bound. He saw the flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and heard shouts rise, but only briefly. So fast that it must have been expected and planned for beforehand, someone called out a mid-level bakudo, and in a flash of light and another, more strangled and desperate yell, he heard someone hit the ground. Isshin didn't have to turn his eyes to know that it was Ichigo. His teeth clenched briefly, and he shut his eyes in slight disappointment. He knew that it was nearly impossible, but he had still hoped for just a brief instant…

His guards stepped forward, and Isshin walked with them out of the cell. He didn't let himself look at Ichigo as he passed, nor did he glance back when he heard the other group fall in behind his own moments later. Instead, Isshin held his head high and his eyes firmly forward, and even though he walked the path of a condemned criminal, he was a proud member of the Zero Guard.

After several minutes of walking through empty, deep, grey stone hallways, they came to a halt before a blank white slab of stone. Here, one guard in each group pulled a square of white cloth from his robes and unfolded it to reveal a strange hood which covered the entire face except for a slit in the center.

"You will spend the remainder of your grace period in the tower of penitence, reflecting upon your crimes," one spoke with a soft voice. "Though you have not yet reached the tower, your meditation begins now. Do not worry about your steps; we will not let you falter. Do not be distracted by the world outside; it has ceased to exist."

Then the hoods were placed over their heads and white filled their vision. Only the narrow gap in the center allowed anything else to be seen, and the edges of this gap flickered fluidly with every movement, making things seem dizzyingly surreal. True enough, it was almost as though everything else had passed out of existence, and the only real things left were those they felt or heard.

With a scrape and a faint rumble, the white slab before them – a door – opened upward, allowing a rush of cool, damp air to press the white hoods against their faces for a moment. Then they stepped outside for the first time in weeks, and it was raining.

It wasn't a hard rain, but it was steady, and it seemed only a short while before every person present was soaked through their head and shoulders. The hoods, which were made of a thinner cloth than anything else present, became practically see-through, and their ceremonial purpose was lost. Still they walked on, not bothering to stop for such a small reason, and the tower grew ever closer until one would have had to crane his neck to even hope of seeing the top.

Then they reached the stairs. Though the steps were even, they were slick with water. Ichigo resented the ropes that held his hands back; he would have felt steadier with them free, though he didn't come close to falling once on the long climb upwards, nor even on the walk across the narrow bridge. His guards had walked close to him, occasionally bumping his elbow or shoulder lightly, so that even if he had slipped, one or more would have been there to steady him.

Ichigo wished he was free. He wouldn't need their help then.

Another door in the side of the tower opened before them, the darkness inside making it seem like an eye or a small, narrow mouth in a face of white stone. They stopped on the narrow bridge until the door had opened completely, and then they proceeded through.

Outside, though the sky was steely grey, there was still a soft light diffused everywhere by the unseen sun. The inside of the tower was much darker, however, and between the lighting and the misty quality of his semi-sheer white hood, Ichigo couldn't make out very many details of his new prison…of Rukia's former prison, if he thought about it. Still, he could tell when he was led to stand before a tall, narrow window in the wall, and he could at least hear enough to assume that his father was now before a window almost directly across the tower from him. His guards moved to stand in a ring behind him, and for a moment he stood in complete silence, aware of their presences but without any way to detect anything else.

Then someone tapped the ropes around his wrist and they dissolved away. Before his hands had fallen to his sides there was a gentle click and tug, and the cords fell away from the reiatsu inhibitor, taking the white hood with them. Ichigo turned to look behind him. All four guards bowed deeply, straightened, and backed away toward the door, joining their fellows there. Their uniforms caught what light bounced through the cloudy heavens, making them bright against the darkness – as bright as the Kurosaki father and son standing before the tower windows.

"You have seven days," one of them said. "Reflect well, and find peace ere the end."

Then they bowed deeply once again and filed out of the door in pairs. Ichigo clenched his fists, the door rumbled shut, and then there was nothing left but himself, his father, and the darkened tower with its spiral staircase and narrow eyelet windows. He turned back around to stare blankly out of the one and found himself with a view overlooking the Seireitei. He wasn't sure what direction he was looking, however; the clouds hid the sun, and there were no outstanding landmarks there.

Walking to the next window over, he discovered a perfectly framed view of the Soukyouku hill. The execution stand was gone, but he could easily envision where it must have been, and he felt like someone had turned all of his insides into iron weights, the same sensation he had felt upon his sentencing. Those melting days in the holding cells had softened the knowledge of his coming death – now, seeing the place where it would happen and knowing that it was only seven days away, that knowledge only seemed more real than ever.

It made him feel helplessly enraged, and his rage only grew at his helplessness. His fingernails were biting into his palms.

Rukia had accepted her execution. She had scolded him for coming, saying that she had made her peace with death. How could she have done that? Now that he was in a similar situation, he only wanted to escape and to live…not at the risk of his friends or family, it was true, but if he were ever given the chance to get away, he would take it gladly.

He was still staring blankly out the window when he heard Isshin sidle up beside him and felt him peer over his shoulder. There, the man grunted as though unimpressed.

"Not the best scenery. You should look out the other side; nice view of the mountains, and they're probably even better when it's sunny out."

"What's the point?" Ichigo muttered. He felt Isshin withdraw slightly, but not too far. He heard the rustle of cloth. Instinct and memory gripped him to the point of paranoid terror, and he began to turn and duck at the same instant—

Light burst across his vision. The tower tumbled around him until at last the far wall struck him, and there he lay still with his temple throbbing and his feet resting on either side of his head in a ridiculous and uncomfortable position. Upside-down and bewildered, he watched Isshin raise his arms in a victory pose, his leg still cocked in a kicking position, and crow triumphantly in his direction.

"MY SON, YOU HAVE GOTTEN SOFT! DADDY HASN'T HIT YOU WITH SUCH A SIMPLE ATTACK IN _AGES_!"

Finally, the knowledge of what had just happened fully connected in Ichigo's scrambled brain, and he threw himself back up onto his feet, snarling.

"YOU CRAZY GOAT! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?"

Isshin put his leg down and shrugged.

"You weren't paying me any attention."

"AND THAT'S A GOOD REASON TO HIT ME? YOU COULD'VE DONE SOME SERIOUS DAMAGE, YOU IDIOT!"

"Oh, don't worry, Daddy has more control than _that_. Here, let me demonstrate my precision and ability…"

Isshin charged, leaping into the air and screeching out a ridiculous attack name, and the battle was joined.

For the rest of the day, the two warriors in the Tower of Penitence continued to live in the only way they truly could.

* * *

The lone traveler had journeyed long and far to reach this place. Across torrential rivers, over sheer cliffs, through baking stretches of empty wasteland with nary a drop of water or food. He had both fought off and escaped monsters, dodged certain death, and worst of all, he had left behind a girl who loved him on this quest. But the quest would surely be worth it, for it was for the sake of his ruling Goddess (or her friend at least, and that was close enough), and his reward would be great…

Kon sighed, closing his eyes and feeling his face heat up (stuffing and fabric though it was) as he imagined the Gratitude of the Goddess…even _if_ it meant searching out that great idiot, Kurosaki Ichigo, the reward couldn't be better. So, with a hop and a skip the Mod Soul closed the remaining distance toward the lair of the Crafty yet Knowledgeable Demon, Urahara Kisuke.

The door was closed, but that wasn't enough to stop a determined Mod Soul on a quest. Perhaps he was hindered by his current body's lack of significant muscles, but Kon was still an Underpod, designed for explosive leg strength and power. Despite everything against him, he had enough juice to leap up, grab hold of an outside windowsill, and scramble into the shop that way.

Once inside, he paused to sniff at the air, searching for reiatsu. It wasn't much good; the place was saturated in it, both from goods and from the sorts of people who tended to come and go freely, as well as those who stayed there. All he could tell was that a good number had been through recently, that none were in the room at the moment, and that they seemed to be somewhere fairly close by, but where he couldn't decide. At last he gave up on figuring things out by reiatsu and decided to go by sight…but cautiously. Urahara Kisuke may be an ally of Kurosaki, Nee-san, and the Goddess, but to Kon he was still a Demon of the first degree, and a Scientist to boot: all around, a completely untrustworthy figure.

At first it seemed that the entire shop, including all the back rooms, was completely empty. Kon searched everywhere he could think – including the bathroom, though it was done with even greater delicacy and caution than any other place, as there were some things Kon never ever needed or wanted to see – and in some spots he even looked twice, but not even a breath of life stirred. After a solid half hour spent in vain, he plunked himself down on the floor, sighed deeply, and opened his mouth to lament his luck aloud.

Then, suddenly, the floor itself betrayed him. It launched upward faster than blinking, squishing him into the wall behind with force enough that one of his seams actually popped and his surprisingly expressive button eyes bugged forward.

One of the Demon's ingenious traps had caught him…

And then from beneath where the floor had been leapt the Demon himself; that striped bucket hat was unmistakable. He seemed to be in a terrible tizzy, searching the room for something or another. Kon didn't see much else; at that time, the floor dropped back into its rightful place on the horizontal plane, letting Kon flop bonelessly (not that he had them in the first place, but it's the thought that counts) off of the wall he had nearly become part of. He moaned deeply, and this unexpected sound caught Urahara's attention.

"My, my, what have we here?"

To Kon's horror, he felt the Demon pinch the fabric at the back of his neck as though it were the ruff of a small animal. He was lifted from his prone position this way, and so he was forced to meet Urahara's shadowed eyes at a closer proximity than he would have liked.

"You're that Modified Soul of Kurosaki-kun's, are you not?"

"Put me DOWN!"

Kon swung both his legs up and planted his plush feet as firmly as possible in those scary eyes. Urahara dropped him, though it couldn't have hurt that much, and Kon landed lightly, pointing a claw up at him.

"First off, I'm _nobody's_ anything…least of all that brute's! Second, don't you dare pick me up like that again!"

"My apologies," Urahara said soothingly, rubbing at his eyes with one hand as he made placating gestures with his other. "I simply seem to have forgotten your name for the moment…"

"It's Kon," he replied proudly. Urahara lowered his first hand and stared at him for a moment. Then a white fan flicked open – where he had gotten it, Kon had no idea, as both hands had been empty a moment ago – and covered his lower face.

"Kon…I see. A name Kurosaki-kun gave you, I suppose? It does have his…style about it."

"Enough about that! I came here on a quest…"

"Sounds serious," Urahara interjected.

"…and I need information first of all. I…hear that you're the first one to go to for that sort of thing."

"I'm flattered."

"What's going on with Ichigo and his crazy dad?"

Urahara's fan had been moving back and forth slightly throughout the short exchange, but now it suddenly stilled.

"They vanished weeks ago – where are they? Why'd Ichigo leave his badge behind? Why'd that loon leave his daughters? Is it Soul Society?"

"That's a terrible lot of questions," Urahara murmured softly from behind his stationary fan, "and a large chunk of information and explanation is necessary to answer them. Not many things are free in this world, you know."

Kon shuddered. The sensation of a rapid heartbeat rose somewhere in his plush throat – an illusionary feeling created by his mind alone. It took him a couple of tries to speak again.

"What would you want? If I don't like it, I get to refuse."

"Unfortunately, what I want would be included in the explanation itself. Rest assured, though, it has nothing to do with either my scientific pursuits or your…current status in the Soul Society. Well, very little, at least."

"I don't like that," Kon said, edging away from the bright eyes peering out between fan-top and hat-brim. "So I believe I'll be going somewhere else now. Good day."

"You are a Modified Soul. Underpod class, correct?"

Against his better judgment, Kon stopped and nodded an answer, suspiciously. Urahara already knew all of this…why ask?

"You were created to inhabit inanimate objects – bodies to be precise, but apparently plush toys work as well – and act as an anti-hollow warrior. You give whatever body you take on incredible leg strength and speed, often capable of contending with the average shinigami's ability to leap into the air and even shunpo. You can crack a hollow mask with a single well-placed kick. Am I leaving anything out?"

"I don't think so…why?" Kon asked.

Urahara's fan snapped shut, revealing a wide smile which Kon liked even less than the masking fan.

"Here's my offer: your very own gigai, constructed especially to augment your natural abilities even further and to offer a semi-permanent abode for your pill form, much as your current body does. In exchange, you employ this gigai in a brief mission which falls rather nicely in line with this quest of yours…if, of course, we find a need for you."

"Is it dangerous?"

"It might be."

Kon crossed his arms and looked away defiantly.

"Not doin' it."

"Let me tell you what you wanted to know, and then we'll see if you change your mind."

Kon glanced warily at Urahara.

"I thought you said that the information wasn't free."

"No…what I said was that not many things are free. Plus, did you hear anything about this explanation in my offer?"

The Mod Soul was still uneasy. He kept glancing at the door, wondering if it was worth it, if perhaps he should have stayed in his blessed, terrified ignorance along with little Yuzu. He could still leave now, though his curiosity would remain unsatisfied forever in all likelihood…

Urahara solved his conundrum for him. Leaning forward and capturing the Mod Soul's attention instantly, he told him everything.

In the end, Kon felt he had little choice. After all, as much as he sometimes hated the guy, Ichigo _had_ taken him in, and crazy old Isshin _had _given Ichigo that protective amulet for Kon's sake. He definitely owed them both. If they died when Kon might have been able to do something for them, then he'd be stuck feeling guilty for every tear Yuzu would cry into his plushy body at night forever after.

Besides, his own body…it actually sounded pretty sweet.

"I get to have some input in this gigai's appearance," Kon said at last. "I don't trust your taste, and if I get stuck with something ugly the girls'll never go for me."

"To a certain extent, agreed," Urahara said with a grin.

Then they shook paw and hand, and before Kon had time to even think of reconsidering, Urahara had found the tool he had originally come up for and whisked him away into the basement for work.

The very next day, Kurosaki Yuzu finally found her lost Bostov on the doorstep, freshly cleaned and mended by an expert hand, though with no note to explain how she had gotten there or what had happened to her. After looking around for anyone who might have delivered the toy, she gave it up as good fortune and scooped the thing up to take inside for a tea party. Oblivious as she had always been toward the animating force within Bostov, she noticed no difference now, unless it was perhaps that the limbs flopped more readily than they ever had before and that the eyes seemed a little less shiny.

And not too far away, at that very instant, a certain Mod Soul was walking the streets for the first time in what he could claim was his very own human body.

Perhaps dealing with Demons didn't have to be an all-bad thing.

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you all for your reviews, favorites, and alerts. I apologize for how long it took me to upload this chapter.

Now, some of you may want to go back and re-read chapter one, especially if you read it when it was first put up and haven't revisited it since. Months ago, I realized that my beginning for chapter two was more like an ending for chapter one and that it only messed up the flow of the story terribly in its current location...so I moved it. Chapter one is actually a bit longer than it was originally, and you might have missed a bit because of that.

That said, I'm off to work on my other fanfics...as well as some original stories, artwork, and the inevitable homework.

Valete!


	3. The Captive and the Free

There were a few basic truths of life (and death, as it were) for which Yoruichi occasionally found herself very grateful. The first was that, of all the possible animals in the world, she could transform into a cat. Tied very closely to this was the fact that cats could go just about _anywhere_, and never be noticed. If a place could be squeezed through, jumped over, or strolled across, a cat could do it, and at worst she might have a shoe thrown at her by some cranky old man or another. Very few people gave cats a second thought, and those who did rarely thought much different than "oh, look, a stray" before going on with their lives. These qualities meant that Yoruichi didn't have to rely on Kukaku or her rather flashy method of entry into the Sereitei; as a cat, she practically strolled right on in.

Another truth is that it is _very_ easy to hide from people who aren't looking for you. To the best of Sereitei's knowledge, Yoruichi was already barred from entrance, along with most other outside threats to justice. As a nondescript black feline, she had her run of the place…hell, she could probably do just about anything short of streaking through first division in her human form and get away with it scot-free.

A third happy truth is that nobody, not even shinigami well aware of how easy it is to run along roofs or even on _air_, ever thinks to look _up_.

And, going back to the first point about cats, even if one did happen to glance up into that particular tree beside that particular pathway, he likely wouldn't do more than blink an eye at the black cat sitting on a branch midway up the trunk…despite the fact that said cat also happened to have an equally black butterfly perched on top of her head.

"_I've got some bad news and some good news. Which do you want first?"_ said a male voice. Not a single passing shinigami noticed; the voice was for the cat's ears alone.

_That depends_, the cat replied, equally as silent to outside listeners. _How bad is the bad news?_

"…_we're out of reiatsu-conductor. I barely had enough to cover one side of the interior frame, and that's dangerously sparse as it is. We're working on it, but the Senkaimon might not be ready in time."_

The black cat blinked slowly, though she never stopped staring at nothing.

_Can you gather or make more?_

"_In six days? Not nearly enough, no. But we're working on it."_

_And the good news?_

"_We're doing a much better job at gathering allies. The Vaizard have been contacted, and they aren't happy. Plus, we have a certain Underpod willing to help out with whatever is necessary."_

_Not much good if you can't get them here – or us out – in time._ Yoruichi rubbed a paw over her face. The butterfly fluttered its wings, but remained steady atop her head.

"_Have faith in me! I'll get it done somehow."_

_The sooner the better, please. I'd rather not be on the run in Soul Society with those two in tow._

"_Ah, of course. Speaking of which…how are things on your end?"_

For the first time in several minutes, Yoruichi's eyes focused on something: a white tower in the distance, just visible through a gap in the leaves.

_They were moved to the tower yesterday. I really considered taking them then and there, but it would not have been a wise move._

"…_Onmitsukido?"_

The cat grunted aloud.

_All over the place. They were well hidden, but I could see, sense, and even smell them, watching from the sides. I'm fast, but not that fast, and not with two reiatsu-drained lugs to drag along._

"_And now that they're in the tower…" _Urahara mused, letting his thought trail off. Yoruichi had known him long enough, however, to correctly read where it had been going.

_Security isn't impossible to overcome, _Yoruichi replied with confidence. _In fact, it might be simpler now than it would have been during the move yesterday. But I'd still have the problem of getting them both to a safe hiding place before we could be stopped, and neither of them can access any powers…including shunpo._

"_We stick to the original plan, then, as much as possible. I'll keep you updated on the escape route. Has anything changed regarding the execution?"_

_Not that I've heard. Same day, time, place and means as ever. They seem pretty confident now that it's less than a week away and there's not been any invasion or rescue attempt._

"_And you intend to take advantage of that, I take it?"_

_Of course. Though first, I'll be paying a few visits of my own…it might help to have a few allies on this side of the fence, too. _

"_Be careful,_" Urahara warned her, his voice uncharacteristically grave. _"If you make too much of a commotion, they might catch on."_

_Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Besides, I'm the Flash Goddess. They can't hope to catch me!_

With that, Yoruichi shook her head firmly, dislodging the black butterfly and sending it fluttering upwards into the higher branches of the tree. Standing up and stretching, Yoruichi checked the sunlight outside.

Late afternoon. It would be better to save her visits for the night hours, when fewer people were likely to stumble across her. After all, a cat might go anywhere unnoticed, but a cat talking to certain rather high-profile persons might be somewhat suspicious.

Still, she thought as her yellow eyes fixed on a shinigami who had just scurried into her view, perhaps there was one _very_ helpful person she could corner right now…

* * *

Renji was sound asleep the first time something tickled his nose. Hardly roused, he jerked his face to the side and resumed his slumber. The tickling returned, and his hand flew up and flapped over his nose. A light frown creased his tattooed brow and he grumbled something unintelligible, shifting again. Again, his nose itched and tingled as something brushed over it. His entire face screwed up, his chest heaved, and the tickling thing quickly got out of the way of the explosive sneeze. That was enough; Renji jolted awake, blinking through the darkness as he rubbed his hand over the bridge of his sharp nose.

"You sleep deeply for a warrior."

The low voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Renji tried to sit up, but an unfamiliar weight on his chest gave him pause. Sitting upright on top of him and blending perfectly into the darkness save its bright yellow eyes and sharp white teeth was a black cat.

Initially dismissing it, he shifted his eyes to the shadows around him, but the little light which came in through the high-set window revealed nothing else in the room.

"Who are you?" he chanced, and before he could blink the cat had cuffed him up the side of his head with one paw.

"Keep it down! I'd rather not have to wait until _tomorrow _night to sneak in again! Time is short"

Renji's jaw dropped, his gaze fixed on the very obviously talking cat.

"And it is I, Yoruichi," the cat continued, apparently unphased by Renji's reaction.

Renji blinked dully, his mind switching laboriously from trying to work out that there was a talking cat on his chest to the idea that said cat was actually the dark-skinned woman who had once helped Ichigo gain Bankai. After several long moments of wrestling with this, he flopped back on his pillow with a groan, closing his eyes.

"Crazy dream…"

Yoruichi's eyes narrowed.

One minute, four narrow scratch lines, and countless hissed expletives later, Renji was sitting fully upright, grumpily nursing his face as Yoruichi regarded him regally from the floor beside his futon.

"I must say, aside from the initial reluctance, you've taken this much better than Ichigo. I actually had to transform for him to understand."

"Ichigo's an idiot," Renji grunted, wincing as the scratches across his teeth pulled. "…so, what's the plan?"

Yoruichi tilted her head ever-so-slightly.

"Plan? What plan is this you're imagining?"

"You know. The plan…to get that moron out of prison," Renji finished in a low whisper. "Isn't that why you're here?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, then –"

"You aren't part of it."

A thick silence descended.

"What d'you mean, _not part of it_?"

"I mean that the plan, as it stands right now, has little room for you save as a distraction at the zero hour. If you take that role, there is a very good chance that you will either have to abandon Sereitei and your role as a vice captain…or your life. We are not going to ask that of you."

"But you're gonna get it," Renji growled. "Ichigo's the biggest moron to cross worlds, but he's always looked out for his friends. If it were me on the block, I know he'd have my back, come heaven or hell. I'm the worst sort of scum if I can't say I'd do the same for him."

"I understand that."

"If you did, you wouldn't be saying things like—"

"Stop. Hear me out."

A long staring contest commenced, ending in Renji backing down with a begrudging "this'd better be good."

"As the plan stands now, it is relatively simple, but precise in timing. I will arrange for a few distractions at the appropriate moment through another accomplice I picked up today. The Kurosakis and I escape in the chaos; no one else should be brought into this.

"Instead, I want to make sure I have certain…agents…on this side of the gateway. Isshin and Ichigo will be fugitives, on the run for perhaps the rest of their lives. Though it's very possible for them to escape successfully and never be caught out again, it would be helpful to have an insider or two high up in rank who can notify us quietly should the Shinigami come too close."

"I'm not Onmitsukido," Renji remarked wryly.

"Yet you are a vice captain, and as you have awakened a Bankai captaincy is a real possibility," Yoruichi pointed out. "You will be privy to information which my only other Sereitei contact could not gather save as rumors. Think about it."

Renji laced his fingers together and scowled at them, seemingly forgetting about the scratch marks adorning his face, though the motion must have stung.

"I…I'm not a spy. And while being a vice captain is great, and captain would be…amazing…sorry, Yoruichi-san. I can't. I have to fight."

Yoruichi sighed heavily.

"It is your choice, I suppose…though I should warn you: the only Senkaimon Kisuke can create at such short notice promises to be dangerously unstable. We need to make it through the moment it opens, and that means if you hang back to fight, you will either be trapped in Soul Society or lost when the dangai collapses."

Surprisingly, Renji grinned.

"Don't worry about that. Get Ichigo and his old man through. I'll stay here, be a distraction…and then I'll take off to Rukongai or something. I know my way around that place, and it's easy for a soul to get lost. Change my clothes, my hairstyle…"

"Your tattoos and your reiatsu?" Yoruichi asked with raised brows, casting her yellow eyes over the geometric patterns on Renji's forehead.

"If you can hide that orange-headed trouble magnet in the world of the living, I think I can hide myself in Rukongai. I'll figure something out."

Yoruichi huffed. "I'd rather not wound the Gotei 13 with the loss of another vice captain, but if that is your choice, then there is nothing more I can say against it."

"Good. Cause even if you did, I'd still be breaking myself out of here to get them when they got moved to the tower."

This caused the cat to still very suddenly. All through their conversation, Yoruichi's ears and whiskers had been twitching about, constantly on alert for outside noises, but that changed with Renji's offhand comment.

"…you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"When do you think this tower move is to happen?"

"Usually it's a week or two before the execution, right? So…in a couple of days to a week from now?"

Yoruichi paused for a moment, and then decided that blunt was best.

"They were moved yesterday. The execution is in six days."

"What?"

Yoruichi hissed and twitched her ears towards the locked door of Renji's closed, private room-like 'house arrest' cell. Luckily, nobody seemed to be coming…yet.

"No way," Renji whispered harshly. "I've been trying to keep track, it can't be more than two weeks since…"

"The grace period was shortened by a week. Apparently Justice is worried about being thwarted by Ichigo's popularity among very powerful individuals."

Renji swore quietly. He then looked Yoruichi square in the eyes and bowed as best he could from a seated position.

"Thanks. For coming and telling me this. I'd already been planning to get out, but…I might've been too late."

Yoruichi nodded in wordless reply. Renji straightened again, still looking a little upset at the idea that he could have missed his opportunity had he been left without this information.

"Does that change your escape plan?"

"Not really," Renji replied. "It was pretty simple anyhow. This won't be the first time I slip a jail cell."

Yoruichi nodded thoughtfully, flicking her tail.

"Very well. I will keep you updated on happenings outside, as I still have a few arrangements to make. The moment we can affect the rescue, I will send you word. Keep your eyes open for hell butterflies without the red markings – they're Kisuke's latest little toy, and actually quite useful."

"Okay," Renji said seriously, "but just to warn you: even if you don't send me anything, I'm getting out of here that morning. I'm not gonna just let them die."

"Since that is your resolve, I wouldn't have it any other way."

"But, Yoruichi-san…"

Yoruichi, who had turned and crouched to leap toward the window, paused to let Renji know she was listening.

"…what about Rukia?"

* * *

The last rough Senkaimon gate took eleven days to complete and shattered in just over a minute…seventy-three seconds to be very precise. The frame for the new one took only three days to build, thanks to an unexpected windfall in construction materials – someone had recently finished building a new house not far from Orihime's apartment and they gave the excess wood to whoever asked for it. All the practice the boys had in building the first one also helped.

Ideally, they needed to finish lining the frame with chips of white stone within the next six days.

Urahara's pre-gathered supply had run out yesterday.

As it turned out, making a workable synthetic substitute was not as easy as any of them could have hoped.

Orihime bent down and peered at the graduated beaker on the table before her, carefully measuring the pink-tinted liquid inside. Every step was delicately precise, as they had all discovered when the vaizard Kensei became impatient and poured _a little too much _of a chemical into his own mixture. The explosion hadn't been too bad as far as explosions went, but it still required a fifteen-minute break to clean up and heal the burns on the man's face. Kensei was still missing most of his eyebrows; there hadn't quite been time enough to bother regrowing them.

She triple-checked the written instructions at her elbow, just to make absolutely certain that she was performing the correct step. Assured that she was, Orihime cupped her hands around the beaker, flared her reiatsu slightly, and poured it into the mixing bowl at the center of the table. Across from her, Chad added a powdered substance to it, letting her move on to preparing the next step.

Within a couple of minutes the mixture was completed, creating a sloppy blue goop similar to wet plaster in consistency. It steamed lightly, though it wasn't hot in the slightest. Chad lifted the bowl easily and poured it into a flat tray, which was then set aside with others to dry, shrink, and harden into what would be, hopefully, a useable Senkaimon brick.

Without her meaning to, Orihime's gaze wandered over to a small pile of broken white rock not too far away: all the failures in this project. Sad wastes of time, effort, and material, these stones could not conduct reiatsu at the required levels to create a gate between worlds. Orihime had tried to 'reject' one in an effort to salvage the material at least, but bringing it back to the mixed stage to re-set had no effect whatsoever, and she could no more reject the substances back to their original forms within the same bowl than she could separate water and milk with her fingers. It simply kept on running back together, and her powers were too wholesale to reject one liquid out of a solid block at a time.

Still, she reflected briefly as she unscrewed the cap on a bottle of a crystal-clear, sickly-sweet-smelling liquid, they _were_ getting better at this. The last rejected stone had been over half an hour ago, and they had been making progress. Sixteen flat, hand-width stones in the last six hours…it was something, at least.

While waiting for Chad to finish cleaning their bowl, Orihime cast her gaze over the long trestle-tables which had been set up in Urahara's massive underground training area. They were littered with bottles, beakers and test tubes, bowls, mixing rods, whisks and measuring spoons; a dizzying array of laboratory and kitchen materials. At the far end of the table, Urahara himself worked alone, measuring and mixing with brisk efficiency. This was his formula and his forte; he didn't need to stop and consult a page of instructions to be sure of what he was doing.

To his left, an eyebrowless Kensei hunched over his array of chemicals, measuring with greater care than he had earlier that morning. Shinji sat across from him, piano-toothed grin replaced with a more serious visage. Rose and Love were the next working pair, followed by Lisa and Hiyori. Tatsuki sat between Hiyori and Orihime herself, and Ishida between Lisa and Chad's currently-empty seat. Green-haired and ever-hyperactive Mashiro had not been trusted to mix unstable liquids and powders together, and so she had been put 'in charge' of running fresh supplies up and down the table. Hachigen, being of a size far too large to trust himself in such small, delicate measurements, simply busied himself in maintaining a reiatsu-hiding barrier around Urahara's basement. And Kon…

Orihime turned her head toward the biggest surprise of the past few days. The mod-soul no longer wore the body of a stuffed lion. Instead he was in a gigai, taking the appearance of a young man of roughly average height with pale skin, vaguely European features, and dirty-blonde hair tied back in a short pony-tail. He had long legs and a slightly rounded face, giving him the gangly, mis-matched look of emerging adolescence, along with large and highly expressive hazel-green eyes. In short, he was just a little too far on the side of 'adorable' to be any sort of suave lady-killer by looks alone, but he didn't have an unattractive appearance either…a fine balance of satisfying Kon's personal vanity and keeping him from finding skirt-chasing _too_ easy.

The mod-soul in question was busily – _diligently_, even – fastening finished and tested chunks of reiatsu-conductor to the inside of the giant frame which lay on the dusty ground. A pot of shiny amber goo which Urahara called "the finest reishi-based glue off the market" sat beside him with a brush handle sticking out of it, alongside a small stack of uneven, misshapen white stones, which Kon picked up one at a time, turning them over and over to fit together with as few cracks and openings as possible.

Orihime blinked suddenly and cast one more quick glance over all the people working in Urahara's basement…working to save two individuals from death.

_We all want to help Kurosaki-kun and Kurosaki-san_…

The thought carried the flavor of realization, though it was something she had already known. She looked at the Senkaimon frame, their last attempt and effort and one which, unless they could somehow cover it completely with manufactured stone in only a few days, may not last long enough to allow the Kurosaki's time to pass through it…and certainly wouldn't allow use enough for any of the vaizard to get into Soul Society beforehand to help the rescue effort.

…_but this might not be enough._

Chad returned with the clean, dry mixing bowl, and Orihime shook herself out of her gloomy thoughts, intent on doing everything she could to help – even if it sometimes didn't seem like much.

Still, she felt as though there was something she had missed, a feeling that bothered her right up until they stopped for dinner, for Urahara to receive another black butterfly's message, and to check on their raw supplies (getting uncomfortably low here and there, and while a few things actually came from a standard human drugstore, others were notably harder to gather) and the progress of the frame itself.

"Well done, Kon-kun," Urahara said, examining the stones already laid in. "You're certainly earning your keep."

Kon looked rather smug behind his sub sandwich.

Most of the vaizard, however, wore noticeably less pleased expressions.

"We ain't gonna make it," Kensei said suddenly. What little conversation there had been ground to a halt.

"What're you talking about?" Mashiro asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

Kensei shook his head, made a motion as though he was about to put down the sandwich in his hands, then changed his mind and tore a large and ravenous bite out of it.

"…we're too slow," Shinji mused in his stead. His voice was low and reluctant. "This is gonna take too long. At this rate, we'll be lucky to finish in two weeks' time, forget _one_."

"I wouldn't lose hope yet," Urahara said. "Yoruichi is more than competent. It will be…challenging…but I'm sure she can hide them long enough if they get out into the mountains."

"The Soul Society has been faced with highly powerful traitors and captains-turned-criminals in the past," Lisa put in, as calm as though she was reciting from a book. "This is how they came to develop the Soukyouku and its execution stand, in addition to various reiatsu-suppressing objects and the Tower of Penitence. All these things were designed and created specifically to overcome and drain away even the deepest and most powerful of reiatsu – the soutaicho himself could be imprisoned and killed by these methods. As it should be. By now, the Kurosakis will be powerless, and it will take them a very long time to regain their former strength. Tell me, can Yoruichi really extract them from the Sereitei on her own?"

"Oh, she won't be alone!" Urahara flapped his fan emphatically. "She contacted me briefly just before we started eating, if you remember. She's got a little bird flying under the radar to make a few things easier, and Vice Captain Abarai has sworn to help however he can. She'll be checking with Fourth Seat Kuchiki tomorrow night."

Orihime felt her heart lift; Renji and Rukia were both strong people, and they would do anything to help Ichigo. Perhaps it really wasn't so hopeless after all.

"Better, but still risky. Wish we had a better way to do this," Love remarked.

"You're half-shinigami, right? Why don't you open a Senkaimon yourself?" Ishida asked, pushing his glasses up with a sharp look at the vaizard.

Shinji shrugged, opening his mouth—

"Stupid glasses!" Hiyori sneered loudly, drawing a look of deep insult to Ishida's face, "don't you know anything about how the Senkaimon gets opened?"

"Seeing as _I_ am not a low-life shinigami, _no_."

"Hey, hey, calm down!" Shinji said, only to be slapped across the face by Hiyori's sandal before he could speak further.

"Shut up, baldy, I'm talking here," she ordered. Rose, who was also sitting near Hiyori, subtly began to scoot away. "Okay, s'like this: a zanpakuto acts like a key to open the dangai. When you try opening a gate, spirit particles sorta read the sword. If it's live and belongs to a shinigami in the Gotei 13, bingo, it's open. But we're vaizard. They couldn't get a reishi sample of us to lock _us _out of Soul Society, but they had records of our swords, just like they had records of fuzz-face's blade over there, and they were mad enough to shut us down whether we were dead or not. Our keys don't work anymore. Simple enough for ya, or should I use smaller words?"

"If you wish to fight, I will gladly oblige you," Ishida growled, beginning to rise. A shadow fell over him suddenly as Chad moved between the two before an actual quarrel could break out. Hachigen, similarly, had his hands pressed in a seal, ready to cast a quick shield, and Orihime had reached up to her hairpins instinctively.

"We can't do garganta either," Shinji muttered from the dirt several feet away, rubbing his face gingerly. "It's just _too _hollow, kinda like negacion…though Hachi does a mean imitation of that one with kido."

"So you're pretty much saying we're stuck doing what we have been," Tatsuki summed up. "Great."

"It's better than nothing," Rose said diplomatically.

Several minutes of near-silence passed. Ishida and Hiyori finally calmed down enough for those around them to relax, Shinji crawled back into place with dust in his hair and covering the back of his shirt, and Chad moved to sit down.

Just as he did so, a lightbulb clicked on in Orihime's mind, and she jumped to her feet with the idea practically shining in her smile.

"Nel-chan!"

The vaizard, Urahara, and Tatsuki looked at her blankly. Chad and Ishida, remembering the hyperactive Arrancar child, simply looked confused.

"What about her?" Ishida ventured, but too late; Orihime was already addressing another member of their party.

"Urahara-san, could you open a garganta into Hueco Mundo for us?"

"Yes," he replied, folding his fan away. "But may I ask whatever for?"

"There's an Arrancar I know who used to be an Espada but isn't anymore and she's a tiny little girl except when she grows up again and Ichigo took care of her when she was little and he was in Hueco Mundo and she'd do _anything _to help if she knew he was in trouble, and _I'm certain she can open a garganta into Soul Society for us!_"

A long, silent pause passed.

"Eh-heh…I'm afraid you'll have to run that one by me again," Urahara said sheepishly. "Slowly. While I get the equipment out, yes?"

Orihime nodded quickly and complied, following Urahara as he swept away through the rock formations of his underground basement. Chad, Ishida and Tatsuki trailed along after them at speed; they weren't quite certain what Orihime was talking about, but it seemed to be a shred of hope at least, and hope was something which they could really use at the moment.

* * *

"What about you?"

Ichigo tipped his head backwards to look at his father. They were both sprawled out on the smooth, white stone floor, regaining their breath and feeling the sting of new bruises. Their last bout had lasted longer than any other in the past, and for the first time in quite a while there was no clear winner; both simply dropped after one last pass.

"Hah?"

Isshin rolled over onto his stomach, folding his arms under his chin and kicking his heels in the air like an overgrown kid. Ichigo refused to follow suit. Laying spread-eagle on his back and tilting his head back to stare at Isshin upside-down was surely better than that childish pose. Besides, he still didn't feel like moving.

"You asked me if I regretted deserting for Masaki. What about you and that hollow?"

"I wish he'd never existed," Ichigo replied immediately, hardly taking time to think about it. The mad eyes, wide grin, and lust for control…he could have lived without any of it, and would have in a heartbeat if given the choice.

"So…you regret it, then? Being a vaizard. All…this." Isshin untucked one arm and waved it at their surroundings.

Ichigo opened his mouth to reply…and then promptly closed it again as he realized he didn't know what to say. His brow furrowed. Wishing his hollow away was one thing, but _regret_…

Gathering his thoughts, he finally found the energy to push himself upright, turning around to face Isshin properly.

"That's a bad question, old man," he said at last. "I never asked for it. I didn't know this was going to happen, not like you knew what you were doing."

"You had to know there was a risk…"

"Yeah. But only for that one time," Ichigo replied bitterly. "All Sandal-Hat told me was that if I didn't get Shinigami powers, I'd become a hollow and get killed. There was nothing about dealing with the crazy thing from then on, or about how having a hollow in you could get you executed."

A short period of quiet passed before Isshin ventured another question.

"What if you did know?"

"What kind of dumb, pointless question is that?"

"Indulge me. What if you were to, say, go back in time _right now_, to the point where you were getting your powers properly. What would you do then?"

"Are you kidding? I'd…" Ichigo had been about to say that he would make sure to summon Zangetsu before the hollowfication could begin, but then he remembered a bright sword falling toward his head, his muscles locked and trembling with the exertion of his brand-new bankai, and the unwanted intervention. He hated it at the time, and for months afterward, but looking at it from further away and from the safety of a mind which would not be overthrown anytime soon…

The hollow had saved his life then. Byakuya would have killed him. Then he would have killed Rukia, perhaps, unless Aizen got there first.

The hollow saved him against Renji and Zaraki, too, come to think of it. Hadn't the mask manifested itself at crucial moments, moving between his skin and what should have been a fatal blow both times?

Its interference when he fought Yammy was unnecessary – more harmful than helpful, in fact, but once it was under control it provided strength Ichigo _needed_ to battle the Arrancar on equal footing. He could never have defeated Grimmjow without it. And Ulquiorra…

He pushed away the memory of what he found upon waking, but still had to admit to himself that without the hollow he would have died there. Ishida would not have been wounded by his hand, but Ulquiorra could have killed the Quincy, and possibly even Inoue, with Ichigo gone.

So many times he might have died, been overcome by an enemy, if not for that one hated power of his. So many friends who might have been killed without him there to intercept a blow or cause a distraction at least. And the vaizard, allying themselves with him and, therefore, with Soul Society for that last battle…what might have changed had they not been there, had they never forged any sort of tie with him, wanted or not?

Ichigo's head spun with the possibilities, none of them good and all of them returning to Isshin's question. _If I could go back, if I had the chance to erase the hollow from existing, would I...?_

"No," Ichigo murmured softly, almost stunned by his own answer.

"What was that?"

"I…that hollow's what helped me save Rukia, and Inoue, and beat Aizen. I still hate it, but if I could do it again…I'd take the hollow in, and then I'd kick its sorry ass first chance I got."

The relieved grin which crossed Isshin's face took Ichigo aback.

"That's good, son."

Ichigo eyed Isshin very warily. This conversation had been _too_ serious.

"What was all that about, anyhow?"

He tensed as Isshin stood up, stretching, and got to his own feet as the man approached. The expected attack did not come; Ichigo blinked in confusion as Isshin simply passed him by to peer out one slit window.

"I hope there's a way out of this," Isshin confessed at last in such a low, serious tone that Ichigo almost turned around to see if someone else had somehow entered the tower. "For you at the very least, anyhow. But the days keep going by, and I…don't know. Maybe there's nobody coming and no chances to get out. Maybe we'll really be up there in a few days, and we'll just get fried and that's the end of it. If that is what's gonna happen...we won't be sorry. No regrets; just good memories of life and the people we knew. Okay, Ichigo?"

The boy in question could only stare, mouth agape, as Isshin turned away from the window, came forward and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Good memories," Isshin repeated. "Don't drown in any others. Do me that favor."

Then, without taking advantage of his proximity or his brief hold on Ichigo's shoulder for a headlock, a knee strike, or even a quick throw, Isshin brushed past and headed for the tower stairs.

"Sun's starting to go down; it's getting late. We should get some rest; no point in insomnia, I always say."

Ichigo's face dropped into what some of his closest friends might have recognized as a 'thoughtful' scowl. The first hints of budding realization began to manifest in his mind; Ichigo may not have been the smartest person of his age, but he was no idiot either, and some things were starting to make a bit of sense. Then, making a quick decision, he stretched, rolled his neck around, and took a few steps toward his father's retreating back.

"Hey, dad…"

Isshin turned around…straight into the fist which drove around and up into his gut. There was not a hint of reiatsu behind it, but the blow still sent him sprawling and tumbling across the floor. Laying on the ground and staring wide-eyed at his scowling son (upside-down, in his current vision), Isshin suffered from the bizarre sensation of experiencing a very vivid moment in someone else's shoes.

"You left yourself open," Ichigo said, and though his eyebrows never lifted, the corners of his mouth twitched upwards briefly.

Isshin, in a surge of proud euphoria which completely washed away the new and sudden aching in his stomach, surged to his feet and threw himself toward Ichigo, tears streaming down his face.

"THAT'S MY BOY!"

* * *

**A/N**: I apologize, for this chapter is both short and very overdue. I can explain the first in terms of plot pacing: I have had the entire story plotted out in bullet point format since the beginning, and so I still know exactly what happens to whom and when. Unfortunately, I did not sit down and divide up chapters beforehand as well, trusting myself to simply go with the flow and figure it out from there. Usually this works well enough, but not this time…I wound up with the unfortunate consequence of having a very natural break in chapter content at a point which either would have resulted in two slightly shorter chapters than what is normal in this fic or one _entirely_-too-long-for-_any_-fic chapter. Honestly, I'd rather go the shorter route and hope that you can forgive me for it.

That said, the next chapter (as of now) unfortunately contains no father-son interaction, despite this being the major point of character exploration in this fanfiction. It was necessary, as the next chapter is the last bit of preparation and drive on the parts of their friends and allies for their (hopeful) rescue, and it is important to go through it so you know where everybody is coming from.

By the by, interesting trivia note: I had originally planned on keeping Renji in the Soul Society as a high-level informant. Sort of a just-in-case figure for the future. Then he absolutely refused. I could _not _get him to agree to the idea; I see him as too loyal to Ichigo in many ways, and too eager a fighter in others. I really did not want Yoruichi to be further clearing out the upper ranks of the Gotei 13 in that way – enough damage has been done there already!

Ah, well, what's done is done, and I'd rather not risk warping these characters out of their proper personalities…not too much, at any rate.


End file.
